The LAPD detective who believed rogue officers killed Biggie — and the family who fought for decades
He was a detective, and he believed other police officers killed Biggie.
Russell Poole led the early LAPD inquiry into the shooting on Wilshire Boulevard on March 9, 1997.
He left the force and spent years telling anyone who would listen that rogue officers with ties to Death Row Records were involved.
He alleged corruption inside the department.
He alleged a cover-up.
The Wallace family heard him.
Their civil lawsuit named Poole and a former LAPD officer named Rafael Perez.
Neither was ever charged.
No one has ever been charged.
No one has ever been convicted.
Poole's theory spread online, in documentaries, in interviews — a story of off-duty officers doing a job the department wanted done.
It is a theory.
The record does not establish it.
The record establishes a stoplight, a dark Chevrolet Impala, and four bullets.
It establishes a detective who believed, and a family who fought.
It does not establish who fired the gun.
That would require evidence.
That would require charges.
The family's lawsuit against the city was settled out of court in 2010, the terms undisclosed.
A settlement is not a verdict.
A settlement is not a conviction.
Poole and Perez were named in court filings, but naming someone in a lawsuit is not proving a case.
The case remains open.
The theory remains a theory.
The detective is gone, and so is the officer he accused, and neither ever stood trial for what Poole believed they knew.
MARCH 9, 1997 — THE STOPLIGHT
It was a party at the Petersen Automotive Museum, and he was leaving it.
The Notorious B.I.G., born Christopher Wallace, was in an SUV when a dark Chevrolet Impala pulled up at a stoplight on Wilshire Boulevard.
Witnesses testified that a gunman in the Impala fired at the SUV.
Wallace was struck four times, according to the coroner's report and hospital records.
He was pronounced dead at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
He was 24.
The identity of the gunman is not established.
No arrest was made at the time.
His mother, Voletta Wallace, was a Jamaican-born schoolteacher who had raised him in Brooklyn.
She became a persistent public voice demanding justice, speaking in interviews and at public events.
His widow, Faith Evans, a singer, also spoke publicly about his death.
She described the loss in personal terms, the weight of a sudden, violent ending.
The stoplight on Wilshire Boulevard became the fixed point of the story.
A car, a shot, a body on the ground below.
The party had been a celebration; the ride home was not.
Wallace was 24, and his mother outlived him by 27 years.
She never stopped asking who fired the gun.
THE INVESTIGATION AND THE CIVIL SUIT
The LAPD investigated for years.
Detective Russell Poole led the early inquiry, according to LAPD investigation records.
Poole came to believe that rogue officers with ties to Death Row Records may have been involved.
He said so publicly after leaving the force, and his statements are part of the record.
The Wallace family filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles in 2002.
The suit alleged police misconduct and cover-up, per court filings.
It named former LAPD officer Rafael Perez and Poole.
Neither was ever charged.
The city settled in 2010.
The terms were undisclosed; that is not established by the record.
In 2011, the FBI released files showing it had investigated possible connections between the murders and Los Angeles gang members.
No charges followed from that investigation either.
The file release confirmed the bureau had looked.
It produced nothing.
Why did the truth take so long to reach?
Why did a family have to sue a city to see its own police files?
Why did a federal agency look and then walk away?
That would require evidence no one has produced.
The case remains formally open.
No one has been convicted in the murder of Christopher Wallace.
His mother kept asking.
The record does not answer her.
TWO STORIES, ONE STOPLIGHT
Two stories pass through that stoplight on Wilshire Boulevard.
The authorities' story: the murder was part of the East Coast–West Coast hip-hop rivalry, Bad Boy Records against Death Row Records.
That was the account in contemporary news reporting and LAPD statements.
The detective's story: Russell Poole, the former LAPD detective who led the early inquiry, came to believe rogue officers with ties to Death Row Records may have been involved.
He detailed that theory publicly after leaving the force.
The family's story: the wrongful-death lawsuit filed against the city of Los Angeles in 2002 alleged police misconduct and cover-up.
Court filings carry that allegation.
The city settled in 2010 for an undisclosed amount.
No one was ever charged.
Not the gunman in the dark Chevrolet Impala.
Not the rogue officers Poole named.
Not Rafael Perez, the former LAPD officer named in the family's civil suit.
The record does not establish who fired the shots.
It does not establish the rivalry as the motive.
It does not establish the rogue-officer theory as fact.
It does not establish a cover-up.
Each story is a theory held by people who believed it.
Each remains unproven.
His mother kept asking.
The record does not answer her.
AND THE STORY STILL ISN'T OVER
Voletta Wallace died in 2024.
She was the mother of the rapper killed at the stoplight on Wilshire Boulevard, and she had spent years pressing for answers.
Afeni Shakur, Tupac's mother, died in 2016.
Both mothers had been vocal advocates, demanding what the record never delivered.
Faith Evans continues to perform and has spoken about her late husband's legacy.
One person has been charged in either murder.
Duane "Keffe D" Davis was arrested in September 2023 and charged with murder with a gang enhancement in Tupac's death.
He has pleaded not guilty.
His trial is pending in Clark County, Nevada.
Davis is the only person ever charged in either murder.
Not because the cases closed. Because they never closed.
Both murder cases remain formally open, with no convictions in either.
The next concrete step in the Biggie case is not specified in the record.
Davis's trial date is not given.
The LAPD still holds the file.
Las Vegas police still hold theirs.
The mothers are gone.
The widow sings.
The stoplight still stands on Wilshire Boulevard, where a gunman fired from a dark Chevrolet Impala and no one was ever named.
One charge in one case.
No convictions in either.
That is what the record holds: a single arrest, a pending trial, and two open files.
She was on the ground below, the record says.
Her son was struck four times.
The questions remain unanswered.
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