LAPD Renews Search for Rapper's Killer

Nine years after the slaying of rap star Biggie Smalls, LAPD Chief William J. Bratton has launched a task force of senior homicide detectives to hunt down the killer, a rare show of force for a cold-case murder with no new evidence.

The beefed-up Los Angeles Police Department probe comes in the wake of a wrongful-death lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles by the rapper's mother, Voletta Wallace, and other relatives. Whatever new evidence the police turn up could bolster the city's contention that LAPD officers played no role in the rapper's death. Wallace maintains they did.

Biggie Smalls was gunned down March 9, 1997, after a music industry party at the Petersen Automotive Museum in the Mid-Wilshire district. The 24-year-old rap star, born Christopher Wallace and also known as Notorious B.I.G., was waiting at a stoplight in a sport utility vehicle when the killers pulled up in a dark Chevrolet Impala, opened fire and sped off.

The murder has spawned a cottage industry of books, documentaries and magazine articles exploring possible conspiracy theories involving Wallace and Tupac Shakur, the other leading rap artist of his generation, who was shot to death in Las Vegas six months earlier. No one has been charged in either killing.

The leading theory being pursued by the LAPD task force involves the possibility that Wallace was killed by a member of Compton's vicious Southside Crips gang as part of a bicoastal rap feud linked to Shakur's death, law enforcement sources said.

Another theory involves allegations that Wallace was killed in retaliation by a Blood gang member hired by rap impresario Marion "Suge" Knight, owner of Shakur's record label, the sources said. Knight denies any involvement in the murder.

Investigators are also closely examining a home video taken moments before Wallace was killed.

The Wallace family lawsuit alleging LAPD involvement had sputtered in court last year but gained new life after U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper declared a mistrial in July 2005, ruling that a detective had deliberately hidden transcripts of an interview with a police informant alleging LAPD involvement in the murder.

A new trial is set for early next year.

After Cooper's ruling, Bratton ordered a review of the LAPD probe, which had languished for years.

Bratton immediately removed Det. Steven Katz, the lead investigator on the case, who said he had overlooked the transcripts in a desk drawer.