A federal judge ruled a mistrial in the wrongful death suit against the city of Los Angeles regarding the murder of Christopher Wallace AKA Biggie Smalls AKA Notorious B.I.G.
Wallace’s family levied the lawsuit charging the LAPD of intentionally withholding information about officers who could be tied to the murder of the late rapper. The family has accused the police of concealing thousands of internal documents as well as tapes and transcripts with informants who placed placed police officers at the scene of Wallace’s death.
U.S. District Court Judge Florence-Marie Cooper told lawyers in a conference call yesterday and that the court clerk would issue the written ruling today.
Many feel this will give Wallace’s family more time to prepare for the new trial and while lawyers for the city claimed the document issues were unintentional, the Wallace family feels otherwise.
“Now we are going to get to the bottom of everything,” Perry Sanders, the Wallace family attorney said in an LA Times story, “and we think this will strongly be tied to Rampart issues.”
This story has all the characteristics of a classic Hollywood drama: celebrity murders, gangland violence, police corruption and revenge. Notorious B.I.G. bought it in a car-to-car shooting back in March of 1997. A war between rival gangs, er, record companies Death Row Records in Los Angeles, led by Marion “Suge” Knight and the late Tupac Shakur and Bad Boy Entertainment in New York with CEO Sean “Whatever the new nickname is” Combs and his late pal Christopher Wallace.
The story goes that the murder of B.I.G. was ordered as revenge after the murder of Tupac Shakur in the bloody rivalry. A former LAPD officer and convicted bank robber named David Mack put together the execution of Wallace along with Rampart office Rafael Perez, Amir Muhammad, a friend of Mack, and the ever popular Mob Piru Bloods. All this came out in statements and testimony.
According to the LA Times, a former LAPD detective named Russell Poole accused the LAPD of covering up police corruption because a number of officers did some freelance work in the way of security. That’s not uncommon in many places, except that these officers did their security for Death Row Records.
To add fuel to the fire, one informant in prison refused to testify for either side fearing death for himself and his family.
No word on when the new trial will happen although the judge should be sending the new rules to both sides sometime today.
John Stith is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
