Salon.com > Jan Golab

B.I.G. trouble at the Los Angeles Times

Mon, 16 Oct 2000 19:30:00 +0000

Former police detective Russell Poole's first attempt to go public with his chilling tale of how the LAPD covers for corrupt cops placed him at the center of a media firestorm. But months later the full story has yet to be told.

In November 1999, shortly after he resigned from the LAPD, Poole met with Los Angeles Times reporters Scott Glover and Matt Lait and told them his story: how the LAPD refused to investigate dirty cops, from Kevin Gaines to David Mack to Rafael Perez. He told them about Mack's possible ties to the 1997 killing of rapper Biggie Smalls (aka The Notorious B.I.G.). And most importantly, he told them about the suppression of a 40-page report he had written about corruption at the Rampart Division. He gave them a copy of that report. At the time, Poole didn't want to be quoted or go on the record. He gave Glover and Lait his information and documents and told them they should look into it.

Without having Poole on the record, Glover and Lait could not report his allegations without independent corroboration, which they set out to obtain. After some digging, and with the documents Poole provided them, they soon had enough to do a piece on one part of Poole's story -- the murder of Biggie Smalls. Their Dec. 9, 1999 front-page Times story reported that Amir Muhammad, a friend of officer David Mack, was a suspect in the rapper's killing.

Who killed Biggie Smalls?

Mon, 16 Oct 2000 19:00:00 +0000

It was L.A.'s boldest gangland killing of the decade. On March 9, 1997, Notorious B.I.G. (aka Biggie Smalls, whose legal name was Christopher Wallace) was gunned down while he was leaving a star-studded Vibe magazine party after the Soul Train Music Awards. As hundreds of revelers poured into the streets, Biggie's caravan entourage rolled out of the parking garage of the Petersen Automotive Museum in the mid-Wilshire district. The famed gangsta rapper, a former New Jersey crack dealer, was sitting in the shotgun seat of a green Chevy Suburban. Rap mogul Sean "Puffy" Combs was riding in the vehicle ahead of him.

When the cars stopped at a traffic light, a dark Chevy Impala pulled up alongside Biggie's ride. The driver, a black male in a suit and bow tie, rolled down his window and fired seven shots from a blue steel 9mm semi-automatic into the green SUV's front passenger door. Four of the bullets hit their mark. Biggie, 24, was pronounced dead less than an hour later, shortly after he arrived at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

L.A. confidential

Wed, 27 Sep 2000 08:00:00 +0000

The meeting that could have prevented the Los Angeles Police Department's blockbuster Rampart scandal took place in Chief Bernard Parks' office at the department's Parker Center headquarters in the second week of September 1998. Officer Rafael Perez, whose tales of police brutality, unjustified shootings and false arrests would later trigger the worst scandal in LAPD history, had been arrested two weeks earlier on charges of stealing cocaine confiscated as evidence. But so far, none of Perez's chilling story had become public.

On that September day two years ago, Detective Russell Poole, the Robbery-Homicide Division veteran who had sniffed out Perez and personally arrested him, met with LAPD brass to brief them on another investigation. This one involved a disturbing station-house beating that happened to take place at Perez's station, Rampart Division.

Had Chief Parks listened to Poole that day, the LAPD might have cleaned up the troubles at Rampart before they became a national scandal. Instead, Poole charges, the chief made him suppress the evidence of corruption he had uncovered -- a pattern of protecting bad cops that the respected veteran detective says was common practice under Parks, despite his pledge to clean up the department. A full year would pass before the scandal finally erupted in the headlines, when Perez cut a deal for leniency and the media rushed to tell the tale of the Rampart Division's so-called rogue cops.