‘King Tut,’ 23-year-old rapper from Asheville, commits suicide after police standoff

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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Here’s the news report from RapGodfathers.com. Rapper “King Tut” was born Darnell Brittingham and went to high school in Asheville – I’m not sure if he was born in Asheville. 

A rapper associated with Harlem, New York rap group The Diplomats shot and killed himself during a dramatic stand-off with police in upstate New York yesterday (March 17). Hackensack, New Jersey police had been searching for 23-year-old Darnell “King Tut” Brittingham, for allegedly stabbing and assaulting a female companion, just 48 hours after he was released from jail on drug charges.

According to Hackensack‘s Courier Post, detectives from the Hackensack police department traced Brittingham to a La Quinta Inn in White Plains.

When a S.W.A.T. Team witnessed Brittingham emerge from the hotel with a female friend and enter a cab, police surrounded the vehicle and ordered the occupants out.

As police approached the car, they saw Brittingham duck behind the driver’s seat and shoot himself.

Brittingham was first arrested on February 11, when he was stopped during a routine traffic stop.

He was arrested after police found 14 grams of cocaine stuffed inside of a teddy bear.

Shortly after he made bail on the drug charges, police accused Brittingham of stabbing a female companion seven times before fleeing.

“I guess he just decided he wasn’t going to go to jail,” Police Chief John Kapica told the Courier Post. “We had him, so he couldn’t get away, which is probably why he did what he did.”

King Tut was a member of the 730 Dipset.