In 1994, Biggie released his first album called, "Ready to Die" which turned out to be one of the most popular albums at that time. Then in 1995, his single "One More Chance" debuted at number 5 on the pop charts. Ready to Die continued to gain popularity. With its success, the Notorious B.I.G. became the most visible figure in East Coast hip-hop, and he became a target in the heated feud between the two coasts; especially since he and Tupac Shakur, a former ally, became vicious rivals. As the Notorious B.I.G. was preparing his second album, Tupac was shot and killed in Las Vegas. Many in the media speculated that Biggie's camp was responsible for the shooting, accusations that he and his producer, Sean "Puffy" Combs, vehemently denied. But the damage was done.

On March 9, 1997, Notorious B.I.G. was gunned down while he was leaving a star-studded Vibe magazine party after the Soul Train Music Awards. As hundreds of revelers poured into the streets, Biggie's caravan entourage rolled out of the parking garage of the Petersen Automotive Museum in the mid-Wilshire district. The famed gangsta rapper, a former New Jersey crack dealer, was sitting in the shotgun seat of a green Chevy Suburban, while Puffy was riding in the vehicle ahead of him. The vehicle that Puffy was in went past a stoplight when it was just turning red, so the vehicle that Biggie was in was forced to stop. When Biggie's car stopped, a Black Chevy Impala pulled along side it. The driver of the Impala, a black man wearing a suit and bow tie as seen by witnesses, rolled down his window and fired seven shots into the passenger's side of Biggie's SUV (where he happened to be sitting). He was hit four times. Biggie, 24, was pronounced dead less than an hour later, shortly after he arrived at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Although there were hundreds of clues and leads and a dozen witnesses, Biggie's killer has yet to be found. The main reason for this is that it's a conspiracy by the Los Angeles Police Department. A former Homicide detective for the LAPD agrees. Russell Poole took over the Biggie case April 9th 1997, exactly one month after the killing. But after stumbling across a lead that would tie in the LAPD to rap mogul Suge Knight, he was told to not investigate any further. Poole resigned from the department last year after the LAPD brass ignored his complaints, also filed a lawsuit, claiming his career suffered as a result of his attempts to bring the scandal to light. Poole says in his lawsuit, that failure to bring corrupt cops to light, hampered his investigation of the Biggie Smalls murder. When he began turning up clues that pointed to involvement by David Mack, an LAPD officer, he was prevented from aggressively pursuing the investigation. Poole found in his investigation of Mack's home:

1. A black Chevy Impala in the garage with a shrine to Tupac on the walls

2. Ammunition that matched the description of the bullets that were recovered from Biggie's body

3. The fact that Mack wore a blood red suit, just like the one that Suge Knight was known for.

Poole was told that Mack had ties to the rap mogul, and that he even partied late at night with him on a few occasions. A Death Row insider told him that David Mack was a "confidant" of Knight's.. Meanwhile, Poole pursued over 250 leads and interviewed dozens of witnesses, informants and Biggie associates. But, Poole charges that he was prevented from following these leads because of the LAPD's reluctance to examine even a known dirty cop (Mack). Mack's apparent ties to Suge Knight were part of the puzzle. After Mack was arrested for a bank robbery in December 1997, he admitted to being a Blood, like Knight.

Many of Biggie's associates believed the rapper was killed on orders from Knight, as retaliation for the September 1996 killing of Death Row's star rapper Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas. Knight was also wounded in that shooting, which remains unsolved.

For a variety of reasons, Biggie's murder appeared to be very well planned and not a chance encounter by some rival. For one thing, the shooter, who pulled up alongside Biggie a block away from the museum, was alone in his car. He had to know which vehicle of the motorcade Biggie was in, which seat in that vehicle (it had tinted windows) and in which direction the caravan was headed. Amid the noise and hubbub of Biggie's departure, witnesses also reported hearing police radios, held by unidentified males, which might explain how a lone shooter, a block away from the museum, could know Biggie's location when he came upon the car.

According to police investigative files, Mack was placed at the scene by a member of Biggie's entourage, Damien Butler, who picked him out of a photo lineup. Butler, who walked in and out of the party with Biggie and drove in the same car with him, positively identified Mack as one of the men standing by the carport entrance of the Petersen Auto Museum. Poole discovered from department logs that Mack took a series of "family sick days" off prior to and during the weekend Biggie was killed, just as he had when he committed the bank robbery. (Mack had employed police radios for the bank job, which was also meticulously planned.) Later, when Poole served a search warrant at the home of Mack's close friend Rafael Perez, he seized a number of police scanners and radios.

Eyewitnesses identified the shooter as a bow-tied African American dressed in the conservative style favored by Black Muslims. Mack was a Muslim, but he didn't match the composite drawing of the shooter made by witnesses. An informant had previously told investigators that Biggie's killer might have a Middle Eastern name, possibly Amir. Investigators noticed that the first person who visited Mack in jail following the bank robbery happened to be a man named Amir Muhammad (also known as Harry Billups). The fact that Billups/Muhammad gave a false address and false Social Security number on the visitor form heightened their suspicions about him.

So they did a 20-page police computer search on Muhammad, which turned up a string of eight prior addresses, all with no forwardings. These included addresses in Las Vegas and Eugene, Ore., where Mack and Muhammad went to college. Finally, the ID photo on Muhammad's driver's license (which also had a wrong address) looked like a possible match to the Biggie shooter composite made from two eyewitness accounts: a medium-skinned African American man with a long, angular face.

With all these pieces in front of him, Poole felt it was imperative to at least find Amir Muhammad and interview him. His superiors disagreed. They did not want to pursue a theory that pointed to a cop, he says. So after conducting their initial computer search for Muhammad, which turned up the string of false addresses, the LAPD task force did not continue to look for him. "Nobody at LAPD made a real effort to find Billups (Muhammad)," he complains. "They didn't pursue him aggressively the way they should have." Instead, police investigators pursued other theories, but only half-heartedly. "We had hundreds of clues," says Poole, "but we were constantly diverted by stupid clues that were nothing."

Poole wanted to get a search warrant to seize Mack's car and ammunition, which had been left behind by the bank robbery investigators, but he was not allowed to. "They told me, 'We're not going to get involved in that.' Their attitude was, 'Mack had already gone down for bank robbery. Let's not get involved in more controversy.'"

Citizens often become police suspects due to as little as one piece of circumstantial evidence linking them to a crime, such as owning a rare make and model car, or having a relationship with a victim and no alibi the night of the crime. By contrast, Poole gathered more than 20 solid clues pointing to Mack, including Mack's relationship with Suge Knight; their ties to the Bloods; Knight's war with Puffy Combs; the sudden sick days Mack took around the time of the murder; the use of police radios; and the fact that Mack was seen at the scene of the killing.

Then there was Mack's black Impala, the stockpile of ammunition at his house and even the shrine to Tupac, discovered by robbery detectives after Mack was arrested. More clues pointed to his friend Billups/Muhammad, including Muhammad's resemblance to the composite drawing of the shooter, the informant's tip that the shooter had a Middle Eastern name, possibly Amir, as well as the long train of false information Muhammad left in his wake.

There were inconsistencies in the evidence in the Biggie killing, Poole admits, as well as in the stories told by witnesses. Some thought the shooter was in his 20s, while Muhammad was in his late 30s at the time of the killing. Other informants suggested the killer was a member of the Southside Crips, not someone affiliated with Knight and the Bloods, and that Biggie was killed in a dispute over money. Even the informant who said the killer might be named Amir also listed Abraham and Ashmir as other possible names.

For his part, Amir Muhammad has vehemently denied playing a role in the killing. "I'm not a murderer, I'm a mortgage broker," he told the Los Angeles Times when he finally surfaced earlier this year. But sources say he has yet to be interviewed by police.

Poole doesn't claim he knows who killed Biggie Smalls. But he has firm ideas about which leads should have been followed. Based on his detective work, he says, Mack and Muhammad qualified as reasonable suspects who deserved to be investigated.

Some suspects in the Biggie killing were eliminated for good reason, like having alibis. According to Poole, Mack was dropped because he was a member of the Los Angeles Police Department. And investigators stopped looking for Amir Muhammad because of his ties to Mack.

While there has been no loud public outcry to solve the crime, friends and family of Biggie Smalls have expressed frustration over the lack of progress in the case."I'm sick to my stomach over the way this case has been handled," Voletta Wallace, the slain rapper's mother, told the Los Angeles Times late last year. "There is a murderer out there laughing at my family and laughing at the cops. And it makes me furious. I've held my tongue for months now, but I'm fed up with the police just pussyfooting around."

So with all the evidence they have to try and solve this murder, why isn't it solved? Was there a conspiracy between David Mack and Suge Knight to kill Biggie in retaliation for Tupac's death? Did the LAPD deliberately avoid investigating the leads in the case? If biggie had been killed in New York instead of LA, would this crime have been solved? With time, maybe we can find some answers…

-Matt Wittnebel

Oh and on a related note, Suge Knight's video company, "Suge Knight Films" had planned to release "a videotape of Jennifer Lopez making love to a long-time boyfriend" and that Knight "is planning to market it on the Internet." Don't believe me? Then click this link: http://www.cdnow.com/cgi-bin/mserver/redirect/leaf=allstararticle/fid=267009.

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