Nine years after the slaying of rap star Biggie Smalls, LAPD Chief William J. Bratton has launched a task force of senior homicide detectives to hunt down the killer, a rare show of force for a cold-case murder with no new evidence, the Los Angeles Times is reporting.
The beefed-up Los Angeles Police Department probe comes in the wake of a wrongful-death lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles by the rapper's mother, Voletta Wallace, and other relatives. Whatever new evidence the police turn up could bolster the city's contention that LAPD officers played no role in the rapper's death. Wallace maintains they did.