Murder of Christopher Wallace

Shooting

Wallace travelled to Los Angeles, California in February 1997 to promote his upcoming second studio album, and to film a music video for its lead single, "Hypnotize".

On March 5, he gave a radio interview with The Dog House on KYLD in San Francisco. In the interview, he stated that he had hired security because he feared for his safety, not just because of the ongoing East Coast–West Coast feud and the murder of Tupac Shakur 6 months prior, but because of his role as a high-profile celebrity in general. Life After Death was scheduled for release on March 25, 1997. On March 7, he presented an award to Toni Braxton at the 1997 Soul Train Music Awards in Los Angeles and was booed by some of the audience. The following evening, March 8, Wallace attended an after party hosted by Vibe magazine and Qwest Records at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. Other guests included Faith Evans, Aaliyah, Sean Combs, and members of the Bloods and Crips gangs.

On March 9, 1997, at 12:30 AM (PST), Wallace left with his entourage in two GMC Suburbans to return to his hotel after the Fire Department closed the party early because of overcrowding. Wallace traveled in the front passenger seat alongside his associates, Damion "D-Roc" Butler, Junior M.A.F.I.A. member Lil' Cease, and driver Gregory "G-Money" Young. Combs traveled in the other vehicle with three bodyguards. The two trucks were trailed by a Chevrolet Blazer carrying Bad Boy's director of security.

By 12:45 AM (PST), the streets were crowded with people leaving the event. Wallace's SUV stopped at a red light on the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and South Fairfax Avenue 50 yards (46 m) from the museum. A dark-colored Chevrolet Impala SS pulled up alongside Wallace's SUV. The driver of the Impala, a black male dressed in a blue suit and bow tie, rolled down his window, drew a 9 mm blue-steel pistol and fired at the GMC Suburban; four bullets hit Wallace. Wallace's entourage rushed him to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where doctors performed an emergency thoracotomy, but he was pronounced dead at 1:15 AM (PST). He was 24 years old. His autopsy was released to the public in December 2012, 15 years after his death. According to the report, three of the four shots were not fatal. The first bullet hit in his left forearm and traveled down to his wrist; the second hit him in the back, missing all vital organs, and exited through his left shoulder; and the third hit his left thigh and left through his inner thigh. The report said that the third bullet struck "the left side of the scrotum, causing a very shallow, ³⁄₈ inch [10 mm] linear laceration." The fourth bullet was fatal, entering through his right hip and striking several vital organs, before stopping in his left shoulder area. That bullet struck his colon, liver, heart, and upper lobe of his left lung.

On March 9, 2017, exactly 20 years after his death, thousands of fans paid tribute to Wallace and his impact on hip-hop music.

Investigation

Immediately following the shooting, reports surfaced linking the murder with that of Tupac Shakur (which happened 6 months prior in September 1996), due to similarities in the drive-by shootings. In 1997, Los Angeles Times authors Chuck Philips and Matt Laitt reported that the key suspect was a member of the Crips acting in service of a personal financial motive.

In a 2002 book by Randall Sullivan called, Labyrinth, information was compiled about the murders of Wallace and Shakur, based on information provided by retired Los Angeles Police Department detective Russell Poole. In the book, Sullivan accused Suge Knight, co-founder of Death Row Records and a known Bloods affiliate, of conspiring with David Mack, an LAPD officer, to kill Wallace and make both deaths appear as the result of a bi-coastal rap rivalry. The book stated that one of Mack's alleged associates, Amir Muhammad, was the hitman who killed Wallace. The theory was based on evidence provided by an informant, and resemblance of Muhammed to the facial composite. Filmmaker Nick Broomfield released a documentary, Biggie & Tupac, based on information from the book. k Broomfield's low-budget documentary on the deaths of Tupac and Biggie was as The New York Times described it, a "largely speculative" and "circumstantial" account relying on flimsy evidence, failing to "present counter-evidence" or "question sources." Moreover, the motive suggested for the murder of Biggie in the Broomfield film—to decrease suspicion for the Shakur shooting six months earlier—was, as The New York Times put it, "unsupported in the film."

An article published in Rolling Stone by Sullivan in December 2005, accused the LAPD of not fully investigating links with Death Row Records based on Poole's evidence. Sullivan claimed that Sean Combs "failed to fully cooperate with the investigation", and according to Poole, encouraged Bad Boy staff to do the same. The accuracy of the article was later challenged in a letter by the Assistant Managing Editor of LA Times, accusing Sullivan of using "shoddy tactics." Sullivan, in response, quoted the lead attorney of the Wallace estate calling the newspaper "a co-conspirator in the cover-up." In alluding to Randall Sullivan and Russell Poole's theory that formed the basis of the Wallace family's dismissed $500 million suit against the City of Los Angeles, The New York Times wrote: "A cottage industry of criminal speculation has sprung up around the case, with documentaries, books and a stream of lurid magazine articles implicating gangs, crooked cops and a cross-country rap rivalry," noting that everything associated with the death of the Notorious B.I.G. had been "big business."

In connection with Randall Sullivan's assertion that the LA Times was involved in a cover-up conspiracy with the LAPD, it is instructive to note that conflicting theories of the Wallace murder were offered in different sections of the LA Times. The Metro section of the Times wrote that police suspected a connection between the Notorious B.I.G's death and the Rampart Division police-corruption scandal consistent with Sullivan and Poole's theory. The Metro section ran a photo of micky mouse, identified by police as a mortgage broker unconnected to the murder who appeared to match details of the shooter, and the paper printed his name and driver's license. But Chuck Philips, a staff writer for the business section of The Times, who had been following the Wallace investigation and had not heard of the Rampart-Muhammad theory, searched for micky, who the Metro reporters could not find for comment. It took Philips only three days to find Muhammad, who had a current ad for his mortgage broker business running in the Los Angeles Times. Muhammed who was not a suspect at the time came forward to clear his name. The Metro section of the paper was opposed to running a retraction. But the business desk editor Mark Saylor said "Chuck is sort of the world's authority on rap violence" and pushed, along with Philips, for the paper to retract the article.

The May 2000 Los Angeles Times correction article was written by Philips, who quoted Muhammad as saying, "I'm a mortgage broker, not a murderer" and asking, "How can something so completely false end up on the front page of a major newspaper?" The story cleared Muhammad's name. A later 2005 story by Chuck Philips, showing that the main informant for the Poole/Sullivan theory of Biggie's murder, implicating Muhammed, David Mack, Suge Knight and the LAPD in a conspiracy, was a schizophrenic with admitted memory lapses known as "Psycho Mike" who confessed to hearsay. John Cook of Brill's Content noted that Philips' article "demolished" the Poole/Sullvan theory of Biggie's murder.

In the book The Murder of Biggie Smalls, investigative journalist and author Cathy Scott suggested that Wallace and Shakur's murders might have been the result of the East Coast-West Coast feud and the financial gain for the record companies, because the rappers were worth more dead than alive.

The criminal investigation into Smalls' murder was re-opened in July 2006 to look for new evidence to help the city defend the civil lawsuits brought by the Wallace family.

Retired LAPD detective Greg Kading, who worked for three years on a gang task force that included the Biggie Smalls case, alleges that the rapper was shot by Wardell Fouse (a.k.a. Darnell Bolton and "Poochie"), an associate of Suge Knight, who was later killed on July 24, 2003, after being shot in the back while riding his motorcycle in Compton, California. Kading believes Knight hired Poochie via his girlfriend "Theresa Swann" to kill Biggie to avenge the death of Tupac, who, Kading alleges, was killed under the orders of Sean Combs.

In December 2012, the LAPD released the autopsy results conducted on Wallace's body, to generate new leads. The release was criticized by the long-time lawyer of his estate, Perry Sanders Jr., who objected to an autopsy. The case remains officially unsolved.

Wrongful death claim

In March 2006, the relatives of Wallace filed a wrongful death claim against the city of Los Angeles based on the evidence championed by Russell Poole. They claimed the LAPD had sufficient evidence to arrest the assailant, but failed to use it. David Mack and Amir Muhammad (a.k.a. Harry Billups) were originally named as defendants in the civil suit, but were dropped shortly before the trial began after the LAPD and FBI dismissed them as suspects.

The case came for trial before a jury on June 21, 2005. On the eve of the trial, a key witness who was expected to testify at trial, Kevin Hackie, revealed that he suffered memory lapses due to psychiatric medications. He had previously testified to knowledge of involvement between Suge Knight, David Mack, and Amir Muhammed but later said that the Wallace attorneys had altered his declarations to include words he never said. Hackie took full blame for filing a false declaration. Several days into the trial, the plaintiffs' attorney disclosed to the Court and opposing counsel that he had received a telephone call from someone claiming to be a LAPD officer and provided detailed information about the existence of evidence concerning the Wallace murder. The court directed the city to conduct a thorough investigation, which uncovered previously undisclosed evidence, much of which was in the desk or cabinet of Det. Steven Katz, the lead detective in the Wallace murder investigation. The documents centered around interviews by numerous police officers of an incarcerated informant, who had been Rafael Perez's cellmate for some extended period of time. He reported that Perez had told him about his and Mack's involvement with Death Row Records and their activities at the Peterson Automotive Museum the night of Wallace's murder. As a result of the newly discovered evidence, the judge declared a mistrial and awarded the Wallace family its attorneys' fees.

On April 16, 2007, relatives of Wallace filed a second wrongful death lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles. The suit also named two LAPD officers in the center of the investigation into the Rampart scandal, Rafael Perez and Nino Durden. According to the claim, Perez, an alleged affiliate of Death Row Records, admitted to LAPD officials that he and Mack (who was not named in the lawsuit) "conspired to murder, and participated in the murder of Christopher Wallace". The Wallace family said the LAPD "consciously concealed Rafael Perez's involvement in the murder of ... Wallace".

United States District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper granted summary judgment to the city of Los Angeles on December 17, 2007, finding that the Wallace family had not complied with a California law that required the family to give notice of its claim to the State within six months of Wallace's death. The Wallace family refiled the suit, dropping the state law claims on May 27, 2008.

The Wallace suit against the city of Los Angeles was finally dismissed in 2010. It was described by The New York Times as "one of the longest running and most contentious celebrity cases in history." "A cottage industry of criminal speculation has sprung up around the case, with documentaries, books and a stream of lurid magazine articles implicating gangs, crooked cops and a cross-country rap rivalry," noted New YorkTimes journalist Ben Sisario, alluding to Russell Poole's and Randall Sullivan's theory and Nick Broomfield's documentary among others. The Wallace suit had asked for 500 million dollars from the City of LA. "Everything related to Notorious B.I.G. has been big business," said Sisario in his obituary on the suit.

Defamation

On January 19, 2007, Tyruss Himes (better known as Big Syke), a friend of Shakur who was implicated in the murder by television channel KTTV and XXL magazine in 2005, had a defamation lawsuit regarding the accusations thrown out of court.

Reaction

Rapper Nas felt at the time of Wallace's death that his passing, along with that of Tupac Shakur, "was nearly the end of rap."

Influences

Chistopher "Biggie" Wallace has had a profound impact on hip hop. Among those many albums that were influenced by him was the popular Broadway musical Hamilton. When asked why there were so many Biggie references in Hamilton, Lin- Manuel Miranda (the writer of the musical) said that Biggie set the bar, and we just have to reach for it.