The Notorious B.I.G.'s Wrongful Death Lawsuit Against LAPD Dismissed

A lawsuit filed against the city of Los Angeles, California and the Los Angeles Police Department for Christopher "Notorious B.I.G." Wallace's 1997 death was recently dismissed.

According to reports, the suit was dropped earlier this month.

On Monday April 5th, Judge Jacqueline Nguyen dismissed the lawsuit without prejudice, after an eight-year wrongful death lawsuit in federal court. Notorious B.I.G., born Christopher Wallace, was gunned down in March of 1997, after attending an after party during the Soul Train Awards in Los Angeles. Although it has never been proven, the wrongful death lawsuit claimed that Marion "Suge" Knight conspired with Amir Muhammad, the alleged triggerman and LAPD officers Rafael Perez and David Mack, to murder Notorious B.I.G.
The lawsuit also named numerous high-ranking officials with close ties to former Death Row Records owner Suge Knight.

The implications of the judge's decision extended far beyond the mystery of B.I.G.'s unsolved murder. For months, Los Angeles' most prominent political figures and police officials, along with the city's most influential media, had been insisting that this legal claim by B.I.G.'s family was nothing more than a nuisance suit, based on an outlandish conspiracy theory that attempted to tie a group of LAPD officers -- affiliated with Suge Knight's Death Row Records and the Bloods gang -- to not only the murders of B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur, but also to the origins of the biggest police-corruption case in Los Angeles history, the so-called Rampart scandal.

In May 2008, the lawsuit was reinstated.

A Los Angeles judge reinstated a wrongful death suit filed by the family of The Notorious B.I.G. after an earlier decision claimed a prior lawsuit failed to meet a state-mandated deadline. Judge Florence-Marie Cooper of the U.S. District Court tossed out the lawsuit March 21 on grounds that the suit missed a state deadline on the case, which brought a claim against the city of Los Angeles and two former police officers. The suit was first brought up in superior court before it moved to the federal district.
His death was believed to have been the result of a feud against West Coast rapper Tupac Shakur.

In just a few short years, the Notorious B.I.G. went from a Brooklyn street hustler to the savior of East Coast hip-hop to a tragic victim of the culture of violence he depicted so realistically on his records. His all-too-brief odyssey almost immediately took on mythic proportions, especially since his murder followed the shooting of rival Tupac Shakur by only six months. In death, the man also known as Biggie Smalls became a symbol of the senseless violence that plagued inner-city America in the waning years of the 20th century.
No further details have been released as of now.