Tupac’s mom helped end his life after 1996 shooting, Suge Knight claims in shocking new prison interview

From behind bars in California’s Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility, Suge Knight is no longer the larger-than-life Death Row CEO he once was. At 60, serving a 28-year sentence for a fatal hit-and-run, his voice is measured, but his memories remain.

What stands out most about Shakur’s life, Knight says in an exclusive interview with PEOPLE, isn’t the chaos, the sirens, or the blood. It’s her—Afeni Shakur. Tupac’s mother, who died at age 60 in May 2016. The woman who, according to Knight, made the decision no parent should ever have to face: to let her son go.

Back in Las Vegas, 1996, after gunfire ripped through Knight’s BMW at a red light, he was behind the wheel, head bleeding, and Shakur was in the passenger seat, shot four times in the chest, arm, and thigh. Knight slammed the car into a U-turn and floored it toward Las Vegas Boulevard.

Two nearby officers, who heard the gunshots while on an unrelated call, radioed for backup. The vehicle, riding on two shredded tires, finally came to a halt. Police immediately called for medical assistance. At Nevada’s University Medical Center hospital, Knight was treated for minor injuries and released while Shakur was listed in critical condition.

“When I came to see him, Pac was sitting up talking. He [allegedly] said, ‘Well, look. One, bring me a blunt. Matter of fact, bring me two blunts.’ And I said, ‘You going to smoke in the hospital?’ He [allegedly] said, ‘Yeah, I am.’”

Knight chuckles, remembering Shakur struggling in the hospital bed, allegedly asking for Hennessy, trading “I love you’s” like brothers.

But at a certain point, Knight says the tone shifted. The weight of everything hit Shakur at once. The shooting. The beatdown at the MGM earlier that night. The threat of prison.

“Kill me. Shoot me,” Shakur allegedly told Knight, serious as ever. He floated the idea of recording a will or even a farewell track.

Shakur feared prison more than death. “I’ll die before I go back,” he allegedly said. Suicide, though, wasn’t an option. Knight says Shakur believed it would keep him from heaven. So he looked to someone else. The only person who could make that kind of call.

According to Knight, who sat at Shakur’s side as the rapper slipped in and out of consciousness, wracked with pain and barely hanging on, Shakur made a final, desperate plea to his mother. He asked Afeni to help him die.

And in an act Knight describes as both devastating and merciful, she allegedly tried. “She gave him pills,” Knight claims, “in an attempt to honor his wishes.” PEOPLE was unable to reach Shakur’s sister or stepbrother for comment.

Doctors attempted to revive him but could not stop the hemorrhaging, Knight claims. Afeni allegedly made the decision to cease medical treatment. “The doctors came in and brought him back,” Knight says. “And his mom [allegedly] said, ‘Don’t ever do that again. If he’s having complications, don’t touch him. Don’t bring him back. Let him go.’”

To take pressure off his badly damaged body, Knight says doctors placed Shakur in a medically induced coma and on a respirator. On September 13, at 4:03 p.m., Tupac Shakur was pronounced dead. He was 25.

“I loved his mother and he loved my mother,” says Knight, exhaling. “But most of all, Pac’s mom loved her son. I miss him. I love him—like I loved him more than myself.”