[news anchor] The murder of Notorious B. I. G.,
it remains one of the biggest mysteries in hip-hop.
[Voletta] Someone murdered my son,
and the LAPD knew all about it.
It was a bombshell that dirty cops
may have been involved in Biggie’s murder.
The repercussions for the LAPD are unimaginable,
that the LAPD would have to basically dissolve.
There’s a $400 million civil lawsuit on the line here.
Anybody that says that that does not come into play is a fool.
[cheering and applause]
[Puffy] B. I. G., wake up.
[Biggie] I’m up, Diddy. What the [bleep], man? What’s up?
[Puffy] Come on now, it’s quarter to 6:00.
We got the 7:30 flight leaving Kennedy...
-[Biggie] Kennedy. -[Puffy] ...going to LAX.
[Biggie] Oh, Cali?
[Puffy] No doubt, baby.
Biggie wanted to go to the West Coast
because he was wrapping up his album, Life After Death.
♪ I’m going, going, back, back To Cali, Cali ♪
♪ Going back to Cali ♪
And Puffy wanted to start doing, like, some early promo for him.
And B. I. G. loved LA.
He loved the whole vibe of California.
[radio jockey] So it’s sunshine today, 60s all over the Bay Area.
Notorious B. I. G. is in studio.
Thank you right off the bat for coming in.
I’m just getting over, you know, seeing this whole situation
with this East Coast, West Coast thing, you know?
-[radio jockey] Right. -They was going through their things
and we was going through our things.
The tension was still high.
You just lost one of the greatest rappers from the West Coast.
So B. I. G was really trying to shift the energy as well
and let them know, like, "Yo, all this stuff should be dead.
I’m here to show love."
That just came over me, you know what I’m saying,
trying to like basically squash it.
Tupac fans were still very angry about his death.
Emotions were still raw.
Don’t have your people in California.
It’s too early.
"The audacity of Bad Boy and Puffy to bring Biggie to Los Angeles,
and we’re still mourning the death of Tupac," that’s what they felt.
"Get the hell out of here."
[Greg] Approximately six months after the murder of Tupac Shakur,
Biggie Smalls, Puffy Combs, other members of Bad Boy Records
were in Los Angeles to attend the Soul Train Awards.
And also, the following night, there would be a party at the Petersen Auto Museum.
That’s the Petersen Auto Museum.
It looks much different today than it did back then.
It’s completely redone on the outside.
But, yeah, this is, this is where it all happened.
It was the awards weekend.
It’s like an after-party for the, for the awards.
It was a great night.
The energy was great.
[Eugene] Prior to the party, I had got some intel.
I got a call from my friend.
He was in the federal penitentiary out in California.
And he says, "Vest up."
I said... I told Puff, I said, "Yo, Puff, I got some intel.
Some people are gonna come and try to kill us tonight."
He said, "Gene, I don’t want to hear that [bleep].
You ain’t got to go if you don’t want to go."
But I couldn’t let those kids go out knowing that a threat is there.
I couldn’t live with myself knowing I didn’t try to do anything.
[Greg] Hundreds and hundreds of people are at this party.
In fact, it’s so crowded inside that the fire marshal
comes and makes the determination that it’s unsafe.
The fire department came and shut it down
and everybody was going out at the same time.
We grabbed B. I. G. and we started heading towards the door.
We were just waiting for the truck to pull up.
Just imagine a bunch of people over there, having a good time
and walking around and traffic’s congested
and everybody is waiting for their turn to get out into the street here.
[horns honking]
[Eugene] When we came outside, I kept my weapon in my hand at all times under my shirt.
I’m just standing by and Puff is in the car right now.
A guy...
who dressed as he was from the Nation of Islam, blue suit, white shirt,
blue bow tie, he was started getting close to Puff’s car.
When he saw me, he stopped.
Even when he’s seen me put my weapon down, he didn’t say,
"What’s with the gun, what’s with the weapon?"
He didn’t say nothing. He just walked away.
So I’m on point about them now.
I’m thinking there’s a problem.
[Greg] The Bad Boy group consisted of three vehicles,
two Suburbans and a black Chevy Blazer.
The first car had Puffy and Eugene Deal, a driver
and a couple of other guys in there.
And the second vehicle containing Biggie was driven by Gregory Young.
Sitting behind Biggie was Lil’ Cease,
and then there was a couple of other guys in the back of that car.
And then the third car was the security guys.
So as they’re going northbound on Fairfax here,
the vehicles are approaching the intersection.
Well, I said, "Kenny, run the next three lights!
Run the next three lights, Kenny!
Kenny said, "Why?"
I say, "If you don’t want to run it, I’m gonna drive!
Let me drive!" Kenny just takes off.
[Greg] The vehicle with Puffy in it goes through the light.
The light begins to turn red and the vehicle with Biggie slows to come to a stop.
Just at that time, a dark Impala pulls up
alongside the vehicle that Biggie is in.
Once we get across the light, Tone, he’s looking back,
he said, "Yo, somebody is pointing a gun at B. I. G."
[Lil’ Cease] And I was behind B. I. G. He was in the passenger seat.
And this car just rolled up on the side of us
and just started shooting in the truck, firing in the car.
Pow! Pow, pow, pow, pow!
[man 1] You know, that is Biggie inside.
-[man 2] Y’all get down. -[man 1] That is B. I. G. and them.
[woman] Somebody got shot up in here.
[man 2] Y’all get down.
Kenny guns the car going forward.
I’m screaming like, "Kenny, turn this MF around."
I said, "He’s shooting at B. I. G., Kenny!"
[Greg] The Impala then quickly makes a right onto Wilshire Boulevard.
The security guy attempts to give chase
but the black Impala has disappeared into the night.
We go forward and we stop right in the middle, in front of B. I. G.’s car.
-[woman 1] Yo, Biggie got shot! -[Eugene] Puff!
[man 1] Oh, no. [bleep]
[driver] Somebody’s dead!
Somebody’s dead!
[911 operator] Okay, sir. Did you see anything? Who did it?
After the shots stopped, we all got out of the car
and the only one car door didn’t open was B. I. G.’s.
He was just kind of laying over the console.
[caller] A man’s shot in our car right now.
We’re... now we’re trying to roll him to the hospital.
We tried our best to get to the hospital as fast as we can, running lights.
[horn honking]
You know, we were just really trying to get him there.
[911 operator] Sir, what I want you to do is pull over.
[caller] I can’t pull over. We’re going to the hospital right now.
[911 operator] Okay, what hospital are you going?
[caller] I don’t know what hospital, I’m not from here.
-[911 operator] What lane are you in? -[caller] I don’t know.
[911 operator] Listen, calm down.
[caller] I don’t know where the hell I’m at right now.
[911 operator] Okay, that’s why I’m asking you to pull over...
[caller] [bleep] What you doing?
[Greg] Once they get to the hospital, they rush Biggie
into the emergency room and begin to try to resuscitate him.
[Eugene] And everybody’s in the corridor and Lil’ Cease says,
"A Muslim shot B. I. G.," and he kept repeating that, "A Muslim shot B. I. G."
I looked and I said,
"He had a blue suit, white shirt, and a blue bow tie?"
And Paul said, "Yeah." And they said, "How do you know, Gene?"
I said, "He walked to Puff’s car first."
So I’m wondering, "Yo, this guy could be the same guy."
The way he looked at me, the way he looked at Puff,
then he walks in that direction.
And then five to nine minutes later, B. I. G. was shot.
[Greg] Unfortunately, he was shot four times and one of them fatal.
That bullet pierced his heart and he was pronounced dead at approximately 1:15 a. m.
[news anchor 1] Despite being rushed to the hospital,
Notorious B. I. G. was pronounced dead
at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
[Eugene] If we hadn’t stopped at that light,
those bullets would have been meant for Puff.
We ran the light and B. I. G. was the one who got the bullets.
I live with that.
Puff was my principal.
He was my responsibility.
Professionally...
I’m glad I did my damn job.
But...
it messes me up
that I had to see that kid go down like that.
I get angry because he told me that he was going to, uh,
to Atlanta.
That’s where he was looking for a house.
We made plans together, and I miss that.
He should never have gone to California.
If he hadn’t gone, I’m sure he would be alive today.
He shouldn’t have gone there.
[news anchor 2] The initial reaction is that
this could have been a revenge killing.
[police officer] That’s just what it looks like on the street.
It looks like it was a retaliation.
[reporter] For what?
[police officer] For Tupac’s death.
[Stephane] There’s no doubt that people thought that
Death Row and Suge Knight had something to do with Biggie’s murder.
Tupac, their artist, was taken.
[police officer] Given the fact that...
that they were both gangsta rap artists,
naturally our people will be contacting the Las Vegas authorities
to see if there’s any connection in the two.
I believe the best thing we can do as far as preventing any further violence
or any paybacks on this is solving this murder as quickly as possible.
[Greg] Even nine years later, in 2006,
when I began to investigate the case, Biggie’s murder was still shrouded
in mystery and speculation.
So, our goal was to get outside of all the noise
that had been surrounding the case for years
and through all the conspiracy theory
that the police department was involved, that the LAPD covered it up.
In the course of me looking at this case,
I was trying to find out if LAPD was involved in orchestrating
and committing this murder, and the evidence, it’s overwhelming.
[news anchor 3] The mystery surrounding the murder of Notorious B. I. G.
deepens every day.
Los Angeles Police Department have appealed for information
from any witnesses to the shooting to come forward.
I’m Randall Sullivan.
I’m an author and journalist.
I was asked to write a piece about the police corruption scandal in Los Angeles.
That was how I found my way to Russell Poole
who was assigned at the time to investigate the murder of Notorious B. I. G.
Now Russell Poole was as straight an arrow
as you will ever find on the LAPD.
The job meant everything to him.
[news anchor 4] Poole believes that Death Row Records’ CEO
Suge Knight gave the order for Biggie’s murder.
He is also certain that Los Angeles police officers
assisted Knight in setting it up.
Very quickly he got word that there were a group of police officers
who were working for Suge Knight, the head of Death Row Records,
and that they could be connected to this.
But the LAPD refused to let him get search warrants.
They refused to let him interview witnesses.
They refused to let him obtain forensic evidence.
[news anchor 5] Poole states in a federal lawsuit
that Chief Bernard Parks shut his investigation down.
There’s still so many unanswered questions.
Poole did become a pariah within the LAPD
because a lot of the other cops felt,
"You can see that this is going to be a problem for us all.
You’re threatening the whole department."
And he wouldn’t shut up.
And when all else failed, he decided to submit his resignation
and decided that he would sue them.
I provided the chief with enough, uh, information
and evidence that would warrant a full probe.
And at that meeting, I was ordered not to, uh, investigate any further.
He had...
deeply held belief that justice will finally be done,
the truth will come out.
[Russell] I think I was getting too close to the truth.
I think they feared that the truth would be a scandal.
But he was, you know, being beaten back
to an extraordinary degree and he was broken.
Russell Poole had never wavered in his belief that LAPD officers,
David Mack and Rafael Perez, were involved in Biggie’s murder.
I lost something very, very special.
There are friends out there who lost, God, a very nice human being.
[Lil’ Cease] It was just a great feeling just to see all the people come out
and show their true, true love for him.
People was on top of the cars, on the fire escapes, out their windows.
So just to see all of them people out there,
on our old block where we grew up at, you know,
just a moment away from the sadness.
It definitely lifted us because, you know,
we was all going through a lot at that time.
[Voletta] They took a life.
No, they didn’t take a life.
They took lives.
They ripped lives apart whoever did it.
[Phil] My name is Phil Carson.
I’m a retired FBI special agent.
I first got involved in the Biggie Smalls case
when I was working other police corruption cases that involved the LAPD.
I was watching a documentary on the case one night,
and there was allegations that there might have been
some police corruption involvement.
And seeing how it took place and in knowing
how these police officers were able to orchestrate and pull off these crimes,
I went and talked to my bosses at the FBI and said, "There’s something here."
David Mack and Rafael Perez were partners over at the Rampart Division.
They did do off-duty police work at Death Row Records,
and they were known Blood gang members.
[Joe Cool] I saw Officer Perez and Officer Mack
at Death Row Records several times.
You’re making $50,000 a year, 45,000 a year and Suge Knight
throwing you a little extra, like double that,
man, you’re gonna be like, "Hell yeah, I’ll work for you." Shh!
Perez was there a lot.
I knew he was police.
I know that Suge had power with LAPD.
I know that he had power with the [bleep].
David Mack and Rafael Perez were not only dirty cops,
but they took it to a whole ’nother level that we have never seen.
What really brought David Mack into the Biggie investigation
was him being arrested for the bank robbery.
In November of 1997, David Mack robbed the Bank of America branch
in downtown Los Angeles and opened up an entire new avenue
into the investigation of Biggie’s murder.
Mack walked in with a TEC-9 pistol,
which was like a machine pistol, under his coat,
loaded $700,000 in cash into duffel bags,
carried them out, while his two accomplices
held a gun on the security guard.
He got to jail.
He immediately announced to the other inmates,
"Look, I’m a mob hired Blood.
Anybody Fs with me, they’re dead."
David Mack was sentenced to 14 years
and told people he could do it standing on his head.
He never cooperated.
He got way with $722,000.
They never found any of it.
After the bank robbery, law enforcement arrested Mack
and essentially raided his home.
They found a significant amount of evidence
that suggested there could be a connection to the Biggie murder.
[Phil] They find that David Mack was the owner
of a 1995 SS Impala dark-colored with chrome wheels,
which is the exact same description that witnesses saw the shooter
sitting in as he shot at Biggie.
They found numerous guns.
They found a blue steel-plated revolver, 9-millimeter,
which is the exact same description
that was given by one of the occupants of Biggie’s car.
There were these boxes of ammunition in the garage,
and they were a brand called GECO, German-made, 9-millimeter,
and Biggie had been killed with GECO bullets.
But they wouldn’t let Poole look at Mack’s finances.
They wouldn’t let him do any testing.
They wouldn’t let him run forensics on the car.
One of the things that I wanted to do was obviously
compare that ammunition that was found at the crime scene of Biggie
versus the kind of bullets that were found in Mack’s house.
And LAPD did say that they were running ballistics,
but I never got an answer from them.
And to this day, if there’s a report that’s been done,
I’ve never been made aware of it.
[news anchor 6] Rafael Perez, a former officer in the LAPD,
has already confessed to intimidating suspects planting evidence
and giving false statements in court.
[Randall] So a few months after Mack’s bank robbery,
Rafael Perez is arrested for stealing something
close to a million dollars of cocaine from the LAPD evidence locker.
Perez would replace it with something like Bisquick or baby laxative
and keep the cocaine and sell it on the street.
[news anchor 7] Perez, a former police officer,
has implicated himself and others in an attempt to reduce his sentence
after being convicted of stealing cocaine from a police evidence locker.
This has launched one of the biggest investigations
into police corruption in recent history.
Perez was facing a significant prison sentence,
and he approached the District Attorney’s office
and said, "Look, I can give you a whole lot of information
on these dirty cops in the Rampart Division of the LAPD
if you’ll give me a deal."
[news anchor 7] There are 20 officers currently being investigated
following accusations of unjustified shootings and planting evidence.
[Randall] So, he made a deal that exempted him from any crimes
and implicated all these other officers
that was mostly made up by him.
So Perez’s story turned into what became known as the Rampart scandal,
and it worked perfectly to sort of smother
this other investigation of all the cops working for Death Row.
[news anchor 7] The LAPD are investigating whether former officer,
David Mack, was present at the Petersen Museum
the night Notorious B. I. G. was shot.
Mack may have set up the shooting on behalf of Death Row’s Suge Knight,
who is currently in prison.
[Phil] The night that Biggie was killed, both David Mack
and Rafael Perez were present at the Petersen.
Rafael Perez was seen picking up shell casings,
and actually he’s on a log as an LAPD officer on site.
And David Mack was identified by witnesses who were part of Biggie’s entourage,
saw David Mack at the entrance when they went inside with Biggie.
There were numerous people that had to help orchestrate to pull this thing off,
especially in public.
This is a huge party, lots of celebrities,
and to be able to pull off a hit like this,
they had to coordinate to where there would be no police present.
They would have had to use spotters, radios, getaway cars.
Now Phil Carson will suggest that the murder of Biggie Smalls
was some type of sophisticated hit.
Unless you’ve investigated a whole bunch of drive-by shootings
in Los Angeles,
you’d realize that that’s just a drive-by shooting.
It’s no different than what took place in Las Vegas.
You had a guy lie in wait.
He waited to either get information about where Biggie was
or he saw Biggie and simply pulled up and shot him.
This is a standard drive-by shooting.
There’s nothing sophisticated about this.
This was not a drive-by shooting.
It was an ambush.
This isn’t some drive-by or random act.
And on top of that, to take six shots in such a short amount of time
and not to hit anybody else in the car
or hit any other part of the car other than directly
where Biggie is tells me that that’s somebody
that knew what they were doing.
This person was allowed to commit the shooting.
There were no police around to chase after them.
They never laid eyes on the car.
They never did any type of pursuit, which is 100% unheard of.
[Greg] In 2006, when I was assigned to the reinvestigation
of Biggie Smalls’ murder, the eyewitness testimony was complicated.
These were the two sketches of the suspect
based on the witnesses’ observations.
So this first one was done one day after Biggie’s shooting.
It’s an African-American individual with a bow tie,
mustache, and receding hairline,
pretty consistent with the combined witness statements.
Nine days later, LAPD investigators go to New York to talk to witnesses
and they get a second composite.
Well, those are quite different.
They look like two completely different individuals.
This all happens extremely fast.
And you realize that these guys
just caught little glimpses of time.
You get completely different impressions now of what people claim to have seen.
Out of all the eyewitnesses, the one that is most amazing
that the LAPD simply ignored was Eugene Deal.
[Greg] Eugene Deal draws a conclusion based on this
uncomfortable encounter that he has with this
Nation-of-Islam-looking person.
And then he hears at the hospital through one of the other parties
that the shooter was wearing suit and bow tie.
So then he concludes that those are one and the same people.
But there’s no evidence to support the idea
that these were in fact the same individuals.
And Eugene Deal never sees the shooter.
Come on, it’s the same person.
Greg Kading’s wrong.
He’s just wrong.
He is wrong.
There’s another piece of evidence that makes Eugene Deal
very, very credible.
And that is, is he was shown a photograph by LAPD detectives
where it shows him and who he believed was the shooter
standing right next to Puffy’s car.
There were two police officers from the LAPD,
came to interview me two weeks after B. I. G.’s murder.
I wasn’t supposed to see it, but I see this photo of this guy
who had a suit on, white shirt, and a bow tie.
It was actually the picture of when the guy approached me and Puff.
I grabbed the photo and I looked at it.
I said, "This is the guy right here."
I said, "What happened to his face?"
Everything in the picture was picture perfectly clear except the individual’s face.
And the officer said, "We’re going to, uh, fix it
and do some kind of computer generation.
We’re going to either come back or have you come to LA."
They never came back.
They never called, didn’t hear anything.
When I first was going through the entire case file, I saw that picture.
And that photo was part of the murder book.
It showed Gene clear as a day.
It showed Puffy’s car clear as day.
It showed the other person clear as day other than his face.
And it... it was quite obvious that,
that it was done intentionally to blur his face out.
Gene specifically said, "That’s your shooter."
And when we went back, that photo had been taken out of the murder book.
It’s like if you’ve got four of these photos on a page,
then you flip to the next page,
you’ve got four more on the front and back,
and suddenly there’s a spot that’s open.
It’s quite obvious that a photo used to be there, but no longer is there.
And we’re realizing that stuff that is... is...
completely evidentiary to this case is missing or being withheld or hidden.
And so, I wrote up a document and we sent it over to the LAPD
and said, "We want to not only see all the photos of the Biggie Smalls’ case,
but specifically this one photo that Big Gene was shown."
And they tell me, "This photo doesn’t exist."
I’m like, "You’ve got to be kidding me."
First of all, I’ve seen the photo.
And second of all, it’s documented.
That’s the part that’s mind-blowing to me.
It’s documented by LAPD that they showed him this photo.
So, how can you say this photo doesn’t exist?
[Eugene] In 2001, three or four years after B. I. G.’s death,
I was shown this photo lineup by a documentary filmmaker.
LAPD never showed it to me.
That was the individual who walked up to me and Puff
while we were in the parking garage at the Petersen Museum.
You don’t forget nothing like that.
[producer speaking]
Like I feel now.
Like [bleep] up.
I can’t explain in no other way.
I... I can’t articulate it. I can’t...
sugarcoat it in no kind of way.
I don’t even want to hold this.
[Phil] The person that Big Gene identified in that six-pack
goes by the name of Amir Muhammad
and he also goes by the name of Harry Billups.
[Greg] Amir Muhammad was the godfather to Mack’s children.
And also we know how close they must have been
because as soon as David Mack was arrested,
Amir Muhammad was the one and only person who came to visit him in jail.
[Phil] Amir Muhammad used false identification,
so the record would not be showing that Amir Muhammad was the one
that was actually visiting him.
The one thing that he changed is the last four digits
of his Social Security, because he knows that this visitor’s log
is viewed by many people, including other inmates.
So he’s smart enough to realize that I don’t need my identity stolen
by putting my Social Security number
down on a document that anybody can take.
The conspiracy theorists will use the idea that,
"Look, he’s trying to hide his identity,"
but it’s an old friend who just happens to be associated with a bad cop
because of a relationship in college.
The reason that he went to see David Mack in jail
is because David Mack needed someone
to look after the family while he’s gone.
He’s not providing his information to a prison inmate.
It’s a login book that the wardens require to go into any prison.
He’s wrong.
Simply put, he is wrong.
[Kenneth Boagni speaking]
[news anchor] Investigators are exploring Mack’s connection
with Death Row and Suge Knight.
It is thought Mack may have hired Wallace’s shooter,
a suspect by the name of Amir Muhammad and Mack’s longtime friend
who now appears to have disappeared.
Amir Muhammad was never questioned by the LAPD
about Biggie’s murder, but there were numerous informants
who presented evidence that implicated David Mack
and Amir Muhammad and Suge Knight in Biggie’s murder.
My name is Xavier Hermosillo.
I’ve been involved with the LAPD’s disciplinary system for about 20 years.
During one particular disciplinary hearing involving the Rampart scandal,
we heard testimony from a couple of inmates,
Kenny Boagni and Felipe Sanchez, who had been in cells
with Rafael Perez two years apart.
During their questioning,
Kenny Boagni started to ask a question,
and the prosecutor on behalf of the department jumped up,
said, "I told you to shut up and keep your mouth shut.
You’re not supposed to talk about that."
We were shocked. We were astonished.
[Xavier] And these prisoners began to give a very similar story
about how they had been visited the week before this...
this trial board by two members
of the Los Angeles Police Department.
They threatened both of these prisoners
that if they came and testified,
that they would be shanked, stabbed in... in the prison.
Both Kenny Boagni and Felipe Sanchez testified that
when they were in jail with Perez, he confessed to being involved
in the murder of Biggie Smalls and participating in it with David Mack.
[Kenneth speaking]
[gunshots]
One of my responsibilities was to keep track of all the evidence.
And a particular piece of evidence was introduced.
It was a photograph.
And I look at it, and I was stunned.
Very few things in life have stunned me like this.
It was a picture of David Mack on one side, Rafael Perez on the other side,
dressed in red from head to toe,
which stands for the Bloods gang.
And standing in between with a knife ready to cut a cake
that says Bloods Rule was a lady wearing an all red dress.
And that woman was none other than the daughter
of LAPD chief, Bernard Parks.
And to see the chief’s daughter dressed like a gang member
flanked by two LA police officers
who were gang members was disgusting.
This kind of filth, these rotten guys,
could be Los Angeles police officers. It was disgusting.
I turned it over.
I wrote the exhibit number, signed my name,
and then I handed it over to my two captain partners.
[Randall] That particular photograph that was entered into evidence
was turned back over to the LAPD, and then it disappeared.
[Randall] The LAPD was relentless and very skillful
in coordination with the city, in closing off every avenue of investigation.
Phil Carson was shut down from the moment
he appeared on a witness list submitted by the attorneys
for the Wallace family, who wanted to get him to testify in court
about what he knew about the LAPD’s attempts to basically obstruct
the investigation of the Biggie murder.
I knew nothing about this witness list.
I didn’t know I’d been put on a witness list.
This attorney from the city attorney’s office comes over.
He pointblank tells my bosses, "We cannot afford
to have Agent Carson testify in this civil lawsuit
because if he does, we stand a 50-50 chance
of losing a $400 million settlement,
and we can’t afford to have that happen."
[Randall] If such a judgment was ever sustained,
the LAPD would have to basically dissolve and it would not exist
as the Los Angeles Police Department anymore.
And they did everything that they could to stop it.
There was another meeting that took place with LAPD
and some of their senior staff,
and somebody in that meeting stated,
"It’s not worth solving the murder
of a 400-pound Black rapper
who used to be a cocaine dealer and possibly ruining
the working relationship between the FBI and the LAPD."
We just shook our heads and go, "This is...
I can’t even believe I just heard that."
That’s the lengths that they went to,
to try to make sure that this case was not successful.
After about two-plus years of my investigation,
I put together a prosecutive report.
We present it to the US Attorney’s Office,
and... and they declined it.
There was always a letter of declination
and they specifically state why a case is being declined for prosecution.
But we never got that letter of declination.
There’s a $400 million civil lawsuit on the line here.
Anybody that says that that does not come into play is a fool.
[Randall] As the lawsuit was about to go to trial,
the Wallace family and their attorneys knew
they had overwhelming evidence that the LAPD had obstructed
the investigation and suppressed evidence.
But the judge ruled that before they could even present that,
they had to show a preponderance of evidence that LAPD officers
were involved in Biggie’s murder.
So it became more and more urgent to find witnesses who would support that.
One day, I read an LA Times story and the story said,
"Federal judge threatens to dismiss Biggie Smalls’ case
because the department claims they didn’t have the evidence."
And when I realized what it was that the family was asking for,
I said, "Oh, my God, this stuff was all sent into evidence."
My name is on the back, my initials.
And then my wife came home from work and she says, "What’s the matter with you?"
And I told her.
And she says, "Aren’t you supposed to stay out of that stuff?"
I said, "Sweetheart, we have five kids.
If somebody murdered one of our kids
and somebody had information, I’d want to know.
We’d want to know.
It was very emotional for me
because I put myself in Mrs. Wallace’s place.
And I had to draw a distinction between
doing something that I had no business doing versus
being a citizen who had information in a murder case
that should be brought forward.
[Randall] Xavier Hermosillo knew what the LAPD was hiding.
He knew he was the only one who could reveal this.
I think Xavier just thought, "I can’t. I can’t just sit here silently
when I know that this stuff exists."
It was about doing the right thing.
So I did what I had to do, and I don’t regret it.
The judge said, "Here’s your search warrant,
go lock up robbery, homicide."
And in comes two US Marshals and they raided the LAPD.