!!!(Notorious B.I.G.) Who Shot ya?!!!

One year after the murder of Biggie Smalls, why doe s the LAPD still have no clue? ANGEL GONZALEZ reports from the murky L.A. underworld where the line between gangs, cops, rappers, and bodyguards Gets blurred

In James Ellroy's L.A., there are no such things as good guys and bad guys. Everybody's bad-cops, criminals, DAs, feds. All rotten to the core. Ellroy, the author of brutal, fact-based noir fiction such as L.A. Confidential and The Black Dahlia, would have a field day with the characters surrounding the Notorious B.I.G.'s murder. Nearly one year after Biggie was gunned down outside of a Los Angeles party, in view of dozens of party goers, off-duty cops, and security guards, his killer is still on the loose, and the LAPD is virtually silent about what-if anything-it knows about the homicide.

When Christopher Wallace showed up on March 8, 1997 at L.A.'s Petersen Automotive Museum for a post-Soul Train Awards celebration cosponsored by VIBE, he wasn't traveling alone. Bad Boy Entertainment head Sean "Puffy" Combs had reportedly hired six of f-duty police officers as bodyguards. With Tupac dead and Death Row Records CEO Marion "Suge" Knight locked up for a nine year bid, Bad Boy's well-publicized beef with Death Row was thought to be neutralized. But bang! bang! bang! went at least seven roun ds from a 9mm pistol, and hip hop's beloved Big Poppa was pronounced dead at 1:15 a.m. at nearby Cedars-Sinai Hospital.

Initially, it seemed as though the investigation into Biggie's death would be markedly different from that of Tupac's, which had be en plagued by uncooperative witnesses and lack of evidence. The Shakur investigation stalled after the one suspect, Orlando Anderson, was questioned October 2, 1996 and released two days later. Since then, the officers in charge at the Las Vegas police de partment have not reported any significant progress.

In the weeks after Biggie's murder, witnesses seemed willing to talk, and the police appeared to be hot on the trail of the killers. On March 9, hours after Christopher Wallace was pronounced dead, L ieutenant Ross Moen of the LAPD's Wilshire division called a press conference to announcethat 22 detectives had been assigned to the case and more than 200 witnesses were being interviewed. "We're investigating possible connections to other murders in New York, Atlanta, and L.A.," said Moen. "We can't ignore the fact that there have been a number of murders involving rap singers recently." He added that the killing might also have been gang-related.

Moen seemed confident that the murder would soon be solved-a feeling that was amplified when the LAPD released a composite sketch of the drive-by killer on March 27. Now, as the one-year anniversary of Wallace's death app roaches, the investigating team has been scaled back to six full-time detectives, there have been no arrests, and there's little hope of closure anytime soon.

Detective Russel Poole, who's now in charge of the case, says that one of the biggest obstacl es has been witnesses "who are not really telling us everything they may know."

Biggie's friends and family, however, question the LAPD's investigation tactics. "I don't like the way the cops have treated us," says Mark Pitts, Biggie's former manager and friend. "They come at us like we're suspect, like we have something to do with it."

"I'm fed up with the police pussyfooting around," Big's mother, Voletta Wallace, told the L.A. Times. "I really am beginning to believe what others tell me: that the police don't care about solving the murders of young black men, especially rappers." "[Police] could care less," says one recently retired L.A. cop, who moonlighted as a bodyguard for rappers while on the force. "Based upon the number of law enforcem ent officers that were present the night of Tupac Shakur's and Biggie Smalls's shootings, if they wanted to apprehend these guys, they would have."

According to the former officer (who asked not to be identified), the night Shakur was shot, Death Row h ad been under investigation by federal agents for some time. There were four undercovers in a caravan behind Tupac-three Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) agents and an FBI agent. On the night of Biggie's death, the rapper's entourage also was being sh adowed by the feds, who, according to the L.A. Times, were investigating "criminals allegedly affiliated with [Bad Boy]." Last April, members of the Bad Boy camp told the Times that police showed them surveillance photographs of Biggie's Chevy Suburban-in cluding one taken 10 minutes before the assailant rolled up in a dark sedan and shot Big through the truck's passenger door. "If they were there all that time, it just seems impossible that they didn't see the incident," said Wallace's friend and road man ager Damian Butler, who was in the Suburban with Biggie when he was shot. "Where did they go? They had to see it."

FBI spokeswoman Laura Bosley maintains, "It is the policy of the FBI to neither confirm nor deny investigations." But according to the f ormer LAPD officer, "There were approximately twenty agents there [the night Biggie was shot]. He had about five DOJ-California Department of Justice agents-a couple FBI agents, and ATF. He also had New York State police who were tailing him. There were a pproximately thirty law enforcement officers there. Rest assured, if they wanted to get the suspect, they would have done so."

"The government invested a lot of time and money into following my son, hoping to catch him doing something wrong before he w as shot down," said Mrs. Wallace. "I wish they were half that enthusiastic about trying to find the guy who took his life." A member of the LAPD's Robbery/Homicide division disagrees. "We have several detectives who are working this case full-time right n ow," says Detective Steve Katz. "We're still working on it diligently."

Initially, there was speculation that the murders of Tupac and Biggie may have had something to do with the long-running feud between their respective record labels-Knight's Death Row Records and Combs's Bad Boy Entertainment-companies worth upward of $100 million each. The beef (which all parties concerned still insist was exaggerated by media hype) was part coastal rivalry, part inflated egos, and part genuine mistrust. Tupac ha s said that he believed Biggie and Puffy could have prevented him from being robbed and shot at Manhattan's Quad Recording Studios back on November 30, 1994. And Knight apparently thought Puffy bore some responsibility for the shooting death of Knight's f riend Jake Robles during a party in Atlanta in September 1995. Puffy has denied both accusations.

The bad blood came to boil a year before Biggie's death, when Biggi e and his crew clashed with Tupac and his Death Row posse outside the theater where the Soul Train Awards had been held. Someone reportedly pulled a gun, and things nearly got out of hand. Within weeks, Shakur released "Hit 'Em Up," an incendiary B-side i n which he boasted of boning Biggie's wife Faith Evans and threatened to "wipe out" all of the Bad Boy Records staff.

Tupac was fatally shot four months later in Vegas. But the chief suspect at the time, Orlando Anderson, was a Southside Crip, accordin g to an LAPD affidavit dated September 25, 1996. The same affidavit-which Anderson's lawyer describes as fiction-says that Puffy and Biggie employed Southside Crips for security purposes. It also says that Suge and Death Row are affiliated with the Mob Pi ru Bloods. Though Tupac and Biggie were said to be hanging with members of the feuding gangs, Bad Boy and Death Row have denied such affiliations. In any case, the security details that both camps do admit enlisting-off-duty or retired law enforcement off icers-may have been problematic as well.

When the gun spray came, those officers not only failed to protect their clients, but sources say they also got in the way of catching the killers. In Tupac's case, at least one member of his security team delib erately gave the investigating officers inaccurate information about events leading up to the shooting. In Biggie's case, one security guard allegedly fled the crime scene without talking to police because he feared his day job as a police officer might b e jeopardized.

According to police sources, the going rate for guarding big-time rappers or entertainers is $500 a day, a nice supplement to the average entry-level salary of a police officer ($30,000-$40,000). "The off-duty cops [working for Biggie] w ere thinking, This is great. We're just doing this for the money," says one Inglewood district officer, who moonlights in the security business. "But as soon as Biggie got shot, they were like, Oh shit, time to go. We were never here. They [weren't] runni ng for their lives, but running for their jobs."

Last summer, the L.A. Times reported that one off-duty Inglewood police officer, who claimed to have pursued (and then lost) the car of the assailant who shot Biggie, was suspended for 24 days bec ause he didn't have the proper authorization to work security for Bad Boy. Five other off-duty Inglewood officers employed by Bad Boy were given written reprimands.

"You're supposed to have what we call permits," says the district officer. "Most o f the guys didn't have them. Their department would not have allowed them to work for [Bad Boy]." Assuming the voice of a typical lieutenant, the officer says: "Biggie Smalls? A known enemy of Tupac Shakur and he's dead, and this investigation is going on , and they say he might be involved, and now he's in California, and you guys want to be his bodyguard? Please, I'm gonna suspend you for just asking me [for permission] to do the damn job!"

According to Reggie Wright Jr., an ex-Compton cop who owns a security company called Wright Way, it's common practice for off-duty officers to guard rappers and other celebrities. An old friend of Suge Knight's, Wright has been providing security for Death Row artists and employees since late 1993. "We can carry guns concealed and can get them out of situations," says Wright. "Our training time is supposed to have been better, our reaction time, our think time. An off-duty officer is the way to go."

"It's generally not encouraged by police departments to have their officers associating with ex-felons," says Jack Ballas, the city attorney for Inglewood. But, he admits, "There's a certain logic to it. Some of these compa nies that are run by ex-criminals feel a certain degree of security in having police officers on their payroll. Not because they think the officers can provide them security so much as they can provide them a shield from other law enforcement agencies."

Interestingly, Wright Jr.'s father, Reginald Wright Sr., is a lieuten ant on the Compton police force and heads up the Gang Homicide Unit, which handles crimes committed by gangs like the Compton-based Mob Piru Bloods, the set allegedly tied to Death Row. When asked if this makes for any potential conflicts of interest, Reg gie Jr. says: "[My father] don't control my life. He do his own thing. He don't divulge anything he would investigate or hear from his coworkers. I don't put him in the position of asking him to do any special favors. We both have ethics."

Around the s ame time that Reggie Jr. was busy overseeing security for Death Row, Reggie Sr. and fellow Compton officers were investigating the gang war that erupted in Compton after Tupac's shooting. On October 2, 1996, local and federal law enforcement launched a ga ng raid in response to shoot-outs that had been taking place between the Southside Crips, the Mob Piru Bloods, and associated gangs. There were rumors that some, including Suge Knight, had been tipped off in advance about the raids. Reggie Wright Jr. says his father was one of the main people involved in the raids but insists there was no exchange of information between them.

The September 25 police affidavit-which was prepared to o btain a search warrant for the raids-revealed that Tupac's death may have been related to an earlier beef between the rival sets. Weeks before 'Pac was gunned down, a Death Row chain had been snatched from the neck of Suge's homeboy Travon Lane at a Foot Locker in Lakewood, California. According to sources close to Death Row, there was rumored to be a $10,000 reward for anyone who could deliver a Death Row necklace, though it was never clear who was putting up the money. At the MGM Grand the night of the murder, Lane pointed out Orlando Anderson as the Crip who'd stolen the necklace from him, and Shakur and other members of Death Row promptly beat him down.

Less than a week later, informed by an anonymous tip, police entered the house of Anderson's unc le, reputed Southside Crip Dwayne Keith "Keefee D" Davis, and confiscated a cache of automatic weapons. Rap sheets obtained by VIBE indicate a long, messy trail of drug trafficking in the Davis family. Keefee D's name surfaced again last May, when Compton police seized his dark Chevy Impala from the backyard of his girlfriend's house in Compton. The vehicle matched the description of the car used in the drive-by shooting of Biggie.

Davis told police last June that he met Biggie nearly two years before the rapper was killed, according to the L.A. Times. The two were introduced by a Harlem drug dealer named Zip, who brought Davis to Wallace's hotel after a concert in Anaheim, California. Zip allegedly told the rapper that Davis's Crip set could provide s ecurity if Biggie's entourage ever needed it. Also attending the meeting were a couple dozen Southside Crips and Davis's nephew Orlando Anderson, sources told the Times.

Davis's lawyer, Edi M.O. Faal, said that when Davis was interviewed by police, he told them he attended the Petersen Automotive Museum party and spoke with Biggie shortly before he was shot. When asked if Davis was a member of the Southside Crips, Faal said, "He tells me he isn't." Davis has not been named as a suspect in Biggie's murd er.

Months before Tupac's shooting, sources say, Puffy held a meeting at the penthouse suite of the Fairfield Inn (Marriott Hotel) in Anaheim with Biggie, Zip, and members of Southside. "I was in a room full of Crip killers," says a source close to Com bs. "Puff said, `They're gonna be doing security for us.' "

Given the history of hostile relations between Death Row and Bad Boy, some say that enlisting Crip security would make sense. "If Death Row is being represented by Bloods, it might be understa ndable to have the rival gang in your employment," says Frank Alexander, the author of I Got Your Back, an upcoming book about his experience working as Tupac Shakur's main bodyguard. "It's logical because these guys wouldn't hesitate to fight against the adversary."

Puffy, however, has repeatedly denied doing business with any Southside Crips. "I would never use people who did not have a security background," Combs told VIBE in January. "Whenever I was in L.A. I hired off-duty police officers and bond ed security men."

Is it possible that Zip introduced Puffy and Biggie to Southside Crips without identifying them as gang members? "Myself and all my crew, we know Zip as an acquaintance," says Combs. "Being a young black celebrity you have thousands o f acquaintances. But as far as him introducing me to Crips, I can't say that [happened]. But I can't say that didn't happen neither. I can't say who I've met. It's not like [all] gang people wear colored rags on their heads."

Mark Pitts, who was chilli ng with Biggie on and off during his stay in L.A., says he doesn't think Puffy was involved with the Crips. "There was security from New York, and there was security out there that I met," says Pitts. "I didn't know them. They was with us every day-four o r five of 'em." Were any of them Southside Crips? "Not that I know of," Pitts says. "If they were, I don't think Puff knew it."

In late February 1997, Biggie and Puffy had come to L.A. to shoot the video for "Hypnotize," the first single from Biggie's triumphant double CD Life After Death. Since Tupac's murder five months before, there had been signs of reconciliation between the warring camps-Death Row star Snoop Doggy Dogg had appeared with Puffy on The Steve Harvey Show to talk about peace-but safe ty was still a concern.

Sources say that Puffy and Biggie were hanging with Southside Crips and that Biggie may have died over an unpaid debt to the set. "Puffy hired Southside Crips and the Southside Crips started extorting them for more money," says Reggie Wright Jr. "That's when they decided to look for [different] security. They hired off-duty Inglewood cops."

That's when Southside allegedly tried to collect on money they felt was owed them. "Southside wanted a hundred thousand dollars for secur ity services," says Wright. "Puffy refused to pay the hundred thousand. He offered them ten thousand. That's why Biggie Smalls is dead today."

Puffy's response: "That's not even possible. I don't have debts, period."
Wright maintains that there ar e people with information about which gang members were involved in Biggie's shooting. But either no one saw them actually pull the trigger or no one is willing to identify them. Moreover, he claims that the same people who killed Tupac also killed Biggie . When asked how he knows so much, Wright replies, "I'm a cop in Compton. I can deal with both sides. I know everybody."

"You have to remember, this shit is serious," says Shakur's bodyguard Alexander. "No one's joking about gangstas on the West Coast. People get murdered all the time over beefs, and if Biggie's hanging out with the bad boys, he can't just walk away when it gets too deep."

Well, it can't get much deeper. Or murkier. With record companies being investigated by the feds, and those sam e record companies paying cops to do security for rappers, and rappers associating with gang members, and gang members being investigated by cops who are related to security officers, it's hard to know which end is up. In the end, you have to wonder just how serious the police are about solving the deaths of Tupac and Biggie if their investigations will end up exposing questionable practices in their departments.

One thing's for sure: A whole lot of people continue to make a whole lot of money off new hit releases by 2Pac and the Notorious B.I.G., but no one seems any closer to knowing who murdered them. Just before Thanksgiving, Biggie's widow, Faith Evans, appearing on New York's UPN 9 News, spoke for friends, family, and fans of both rappers when sh e wondered aloud why the the killers haven't been brought to justice. "I wouldn't at all try to shame the LAPD," said Evans. "But it's like [Biggie's] murder as well as Tupac's-how could they not have any leads? I'm sure they have a lot, but maybe they're not following the right ones."

By Angel Gonzalez