Officers May Have Guarded Notorious B.I.G.

The Inglewood police chief said Wednesday that his department is investigating whether one of its officers was working as a bodyguard for Notorious B.I.G. on the evening he was killed in a drive-by shooting.

Inglewood Police Chief Alex Perez said the 24-year-old rapper’s record company may have hired at least one off-duty officer on March 9 to work security--in violation of department policy.

“A personnel investigation into the matter is underway,” Perez said. “We certainly did not authorize any of our officers to bodyguard for Notorious B.I.G. It is against our policy to allow officers to work security for anyone who may be affiliated with individuals with a criminal background.”

Law enforcement sources said this week that as many as six off-duty Inglewood officers may have been working without authorization for the rapper, whose real name was Christopher Wallace, and the record company president Sean “Puffy” Combs. A few off-duty Inglewood officers were allegedly seen working security at the music industry event just before Wallace was shot.

Sources also said that one of those officers might have been driving a vehicle directly behind the sport utility vehicle in which Wallace was shot outside of the Petersen Automotive Museum on Fairfax Avenue in the Mid-Wilshire district.

Perez declined to comment on any details of his department’s personnel investigation into the matter.

LAPD Lt. Ross Moen, who is handling the homicide investigation, declined to comment on whether off-duty Inglewood officers were hired for security or may have been present at the scene of the crime.

Moen did say, however, that investigators have recovered a home video taken at the time of the shooting and will release two composite suspect sketches at a news conference scheduled for today. However, he said he will not name a suspect.

Law enforcement sources say the investigation is still focusing on the likelihood that the rapper was gunned down over a personal financial dispute with a Southside Crips gang member from Compton.

Sources in Wallace’s entourage told The Times this week that Wallace was sitting in the passenger seat of a sport utility vehicle at a red light on Fairfax when a dark green sedan, possibly a Chevrolet SS, pulled up in the next lane. The driver of the dark sedan then stuck a handgun out the window and pumped at least seven rounds at close range into Wallace’s vehicle before speeding off.

Police will not discuss what the new video shows, but they have repeatedly characterized the slaying as a drive-by shooting. On Wednesday, both police and sources in Wallace’s entourage denied reports by other witnesses who claim that a man walked up to the rapper’s vehicle, pulled a gun and began firing.

In a taped interview to be aired Sunday on MTV, Combs confirms that his company hired off-duty California police officers for security on the night of the shooting. But Combs denies that he or Wallace ever employed members of the Southside Crips for security, as a Compton police officer stated in an affidavit filed last year while seeking to obtain search warrants for a gang raid.

Individuals close to Wallace said he was not affiliated in any way with the Crips. But law enforcement sources say that before attending the industry party where he was shot, Wallace hung out at a Compton park with a group of Southside Crips gang members.