The mysterious murder of the Notorious BIG is finally in court, albeit through a wrongful death lawsuit that has been filed by the late rapper's family. The legal action claims that LAPD officials covered up a former officer's involvement in the murder of Biggie, real name Christopher Wallace. They also claim that police bosses failed to do anything about their officers moonlighting as security guards for hip hop groups during the mid-nineties - a situation which, allegedly, affected the LAPD's independence in investigating Wallace's shooting.
Wallace was killed on 9 Mar 1997, shot as he drove through LA. The incident came just six months after the murder of rival rapper Tupac Shakur and both incidents have forever been linked to the ongoing feud between rival hip hop record labels Bad Boy Entertainment and Deathrow Records, and their respective entourages and gang connections.
The family claim that the two labels hired off-duty police officers as bodyguards, and officers working for Deathrow were involved in the Biggie shooting. A popular theory is that one officer in particular, one David Mack, arranged for his college roommate, Amir Muhammad, to kill Wallace following instructions from Deathrow boss Suge Knight. However police have said there has never been enough evidence to pursue that theory, and Wallace's family also recently announced they were dropping their planned litigation specifically against Mack because of evidential problems (a decision possibly linked to reports a key witness to support that theory was backing away from earlier statements).
Nevertheless, Mack's involvement in Wallace's murder is crucial to the current court case. Jurors, who were selected yesterday, will have to decide whether or not there is strong enough evidence to rule that Mack was involved in the killing. If so, they will then be asked to consider if the LAPD or city officials should be held responsible for the off-duty officer's actions. After that they would be asked to assess suitable damages.
It is not clear what the civil case will achieve, or whether criminal proceedings would follow if the Wallace family win (Mack is already in jail following his involvement in a bank robbery). However it should shed some light the somewhat dubious LAPD investigations into the murder, and might give us an insight into the relationships between the police, LA and New York gangs and the hip hop community in the mid-nineties.