Biggie's murder case gets another look

[Shawn Nutt]

http://www.livedaily.com/news/Notorious_BIG_slaying_gets_fresh_look-10471.html?t=1

Nearly a decade after rapper The Notorious B.I.G. (music) was gunned down while driving away from a music-industry event in Los Angeles, the city's police department says it's directing more resources to the still-unsolved murder.
A Los Angeles Police Department spokesperson told reporters Monday (7/31) that a new task force led by seven veteran homicide detectives is taking a look at the 1997 case. The department has also reinstated a $50,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.

The LAPD's moves come as it continues to fight a wrongful death lawsuit filed by B.I.G.'s mother, Voletta Wallace, which alleges that a former LAPD officer conspired with Death Row Records founder Suge Knight on a contract killing of the rapper.

Last year, a mistrial was declared in the wrongful-death suit after a judge ruled that a detective for the LAPD withheld evidence in the case.

According to a Los Angeles Times report, a "leading theory" under investigation is that the rapper, whose real name was Christopher Wallace, was killed by a member of Compton, CA's Southside Crips gang in retaliation for the earlier slaying of rapper Tupac Shakur. Shakur was gunned down in Las Vegas in 1996.

Wallace was shot and killed March 9, 1997, outside the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. He was waiting at a stop light in his sport utility vehicle when the killers pulled up in a dark Chevrolet Impala, opened fire and drove away.