Customer Reviews

LAbyrinth: A Detective Investigates the Murders of Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. The Implication of Death Row Records' Suge Knight and the Origins of the Los Angeles Police Scandal

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I'm not sure why I grabbed this book -- at best I'm a very casual rap fan, being more of an "old school" type (very old school). Perhaps it was my interest in the history of police corruption in Los Angeles, which goes back to the days of Raymond Chandler and beyond.

In any case, this is an excellent read. Sullivan takes a very complex tale with many players and makes it easy to follow. The writing is clear, crisp and clean. His logical analysis of the controversies in the investigation seem very sound. This is not a book that will titillate people with a voyeuristic look at the rap lifestyle. He keeps the focus very tightly on the murder investigations and the connections between rogue LAPD officers and Death Row records.

I guess I have only two quibbles. First, the book needs an index. We get a timeline (very helpful), a cast of characters, even recommended further readings. But an index would be nice. Second, and this is not Sullivan's fault in anyway, this is a very grim tale. Evil goes unpunished, the truth is suppressed by authorities and good guys are in short supply.

People who lived through the L.A. police corruption scandals of earlier eras would find much to recognize in this tale.

I was drawn to this book by a radio interview I heard a year ago or so, I believe with the author (I missed the beginning of the interview) in which he detailed some of the allegations of shoddy policework that attended the LAPD's investigation of the murder of Christopher Wallace, who went by the rap alias Notorious B.I.G. One eye-opener was an eyewitness to the shooting who was willing to cooperate but was never contacted by authorities, and was shot to death in a housing project back east two months later. So I bought the book, and basically more of my opinions on the LAPD scandals of the last several years were confirmed.

The book starts with Russell Poole, a decorated detective with basically impeccable credentials, investigating a shooting in the San Fernando Valley. The shooter and the victim both turned out to be police officers: the shooter, Frank Lyga, was a white undercover narcotics detective, the man killed, Kevin Gaines, a black patrolman. When the detectives went to the house the black policeman was living in, they were a bit taken aback to discover it was a mansion in Beverly Hills. The man's girlfriend was Suge Knight's estranged wife. Knight, the owner of Death Row Records, had an unsavory reputation for intimidation, extortion, drug dealing, and murder anyway, so the police were somewhat taken aback.

Soon, Poole agrees to become the lead detective in the investigation of the shooting of Wallace mentioned above, and discovers that there may be LAPD officers involved in the killing, or at least working for Suge Knight. Soon, that part of the investigation is derailed, and Poole is ordered by superiors to look in other directions that he's sure will be fruitless, and of course they turn out to be. Meanwhile connections to other incidents, including the killing of Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas, surface, but nothing's pursued.

The minutae of the story does at times bog it down. This does one bad thing in terms of the book: it serves to obscure the author's basic message, which is that the political leadership in Los Angeles and its minority-run suburbs (notably Compton) are unwilling to investigate people like Suge Knight too closely, and the Los Angeles media is willing to cover for them because to do otherwise would damage various minority (read black) politicians and city leaders. Prominent in this category is Bernard Parks, the controversial now ex-chief of police. Sullivan has him basically uninterested in corruption among black police officers when he was in charge of the Internal Affairs division, and later when he was chief. The mayor, and Maxine Waters, our most prominent local black politician (she's a congresswoman from Compton and South-Central LA) are also implicated, if not in corruption, then in condoning it.

The last part of the book, however, was a surprise for me. When Poole was investigating the connections between Death Row Records and various black police officers who were illegally working for the company providing security, one of the officers involved was a gang task force detective named Rafael Perez. For those not up to date on LA current affairs, Perez was caught with several kilos of cocaine, and turned state's evidence in return for a reduced sentence. The subsequent investigation led to what's been known as the Rampart police scandal, after the Rampart division where it occurred. His testimony got many (hundreds) of people released from prison, and has resulted in the city paying millions (some estimate it's going to run into the hundreds of millions or even more) in damages to the alleged victims. Perez himself is something of a chamelion (black to blacks, latino to latinos, colorless to whites) and apparently has been fabricating at least some of his allegations, but meanwhile he's worked himself a deal such that he's already negotiating a release from prison. Poole's investigation seemed to show that Perez's allegations should be carefully viewed, but the higher-ups in the LAPD wouldn't listen, and the whole thing has blown up in their faces. Even worse, they shut down the gang task force that Perez was part of, and predictably gang homicides increased almost immediately.

This is a tangled, convoluted, difficult book. People get killed left and right, and most of those killed aren't exactly angels themselves. Notorious B.I.G., for instance, was a drug dealer before he became a rapper, and Tupac shouldn't need any introduction. The implication that the police are or were running interference for the people who killed them, however, is pretty horrifying, and the author presents some evidence that one cop should be at least looked at in connection with Notorious B.I.G.'s murder itself, though an associate of his is the likely shooter. While this is troubling, it's the racial politics that's the most aggravating to me. One person is quoted as saying that the L.A. Times, for instance, wouldn't investigate the story further because they didn't want to be involved in bringing down an African-American police chief (Bernard Parks). This sort of thing has to stop. While Suge Knight is black, yes, so were most if not all of this victims. Failing to demand justice on that rationale is insane, and if the allegations in the book have merit, they should be investigated thoroughly.

A book like LAbryinth is so compelling, and so right on that it is amazing that LA society in general does not get up in arms when they read of the lax police policy that allows thugs and gangsters to foist rap music as an artform, and brutality as a modus operandi on the public. OK OK all people are entitled to produce their personal music, but the crude lyrics are far exceeded in debauchery by the tacit police compliance by LA's famous Chief Bernard Parks and a band of his hand picked corrupted officers. THAT A FIRST CLASS DETECTIVE LIKE RUSSELL POOLE RESIGNS BECAUSE HE IS UNABLE TO DO HIS JOB is not only frightening but should be totally unacceptable to anyone who reads or hears about the book. Chief Parks' contract has not been renewed, but why is this LAbyrinth information still not blasting from the front page of the LA Times? Informed readers shake their heads, and the rappers shake their booty. What needs to shake is the very foundation of the LA police department.

The book is an excellent read, and for the reader from Trenton, NJ, if you already knew what was going on in regards to the whole Death Row/Tupac/Biggie murder, then why did you buy the book? And if the reader from Trenton did know so much about Suge Knight, then he would not have found it highly unlikely that these rougue cops who were associates of Suge Knight could instill the kind of fear into their co-workers as they did. The book exposes the dirty side of both politics and law enforcement and although it does happen in every city it doesn't mean it's right. And apparently the Chief of police was not doing his job since he was not re-elected. I admire this detectives time, dedication, and courage to expose Suge Knight. I also admire his dedication to trying to solve the horrific murders of these great entertainers and it is just unfortunate that politics is overriding these two unjust murders and who knows how many others. A must read!

After finishing LAbyrinth, I can say I am extremely pleased with Randall Sullivan's effort. The book was thoroughly researched, well written, and is the most definitive work written on the Biggie Smalls/Tupac murders. Although there are plenty of dates and facts throughout, the book's narrative is easy to follow, and it doesn't really read like a text. If you're interested in true crime and/or the rap industry's seething underbelly, then this should be a top choice. Also included is a startling portrait of the LAPD as one of the most corrupt police organizations in U.S. history. The binding thread in this book is Detective Russell Poole's investigation of Biggie's murder, and the subsequent LAPD officer ties to Death Row Record's executive Suge Knight. Highly recommended reading.

Picked this book up on a whim. Lived through the whole East Coast/West Coast thing. Love them music and thought I'd read to see what one mans thoughts were. It's amazing what happens behind closed doors. I applaud his source for being so open with everything. We may never know completely what happened, but here's an interesting start. I found myself shaking my head a few times baffled at the blatant disregard for the law. I'd have loved to have been a fly on the wall at some of these "brass" meetings. Easy read, complete with roster and timeline, just in case you can't completely remember.

I loved this book, and I hate reading. I loved it so much that I gave it to my 60 year old rap-hating father. He loved it more than I did. It is more about the currupt issues surrounding the LAPD in the 90's but does go into the Tupac/Biggie murders very well great book for anyone.

Sullivan does an excellent job of taking a web so tangled it could have been a James Ellroy plot, and presenting it in a clear, logical order. The rabbit hole goes deeper and deeper as the pages turn, until we start to wonder if we can ever possibly know just how far it reached. Every answered question leads to ten new questions, and the more we learn, the more complicated it gets.

I first learned of the connection between Notorious B.I.G.'s death, Tupac Shakur's death, Suge Knight, and the LAPD's CRASH Unit Rampart Scandal from Sullivan's "Rolling Stone" article. This book expands on that research and tells the story in vivid detail. There were moments when I felt like I was there.

A first rate cautionary tale that has yet to be fully played out. The author provides an engrossing and comprehensive look at one of the worst kept secrets in modern history: the identity of the killer of Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. (and many others). The really depressing theme of the book though is how "racial" politics have become so polarized that a community embraces the thugs who are destroying it as the power structure avoids getting involved (when not actually directly aiding the gangsters) for fear of the reaction of our politically correct media. A wakeup call to Americans of all skin colors and a plea to the FBI to close these cases....

The gist of whats going on in this book is that the author concludes, mainly through interviews with a detective that was on the Biggie Smalls murder case that the murders of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls were hits ordered by Suge Knight and were carried out by police officers who were affiliated with the Bloods street gang and worked as security for Knights Death Row record label.

I don't know if he gets it right or not but he does make a pretty good argument that this is the case. When a white detective who thought he had enough to make arrests in the Smalls murder but wasn't allowed to by LAPD higher ups spilled the beans on what was going on the media didn't pursue the story because "you can't tell a story where the good guy is a white detective and the villians are all black"! The police didn't want to delve to deeply into the case because the evidence that was there pointed to the most likely scenario being that the triggerman in both murders were probably Bloods street gang affiliated police officers who were carrying out the hits for Suge Knight and they did not want to deal with the public relations disaster. The weakest link in all this is when Shakur was gunned down Knight was sitting right next to him in the car. Old fashioned common sense tells me if Knight was planning on having someone killed it wouldn't be in a situation where he would be sitting right next to the person. But overall Sullivan makes a good case for his argument. I found this very entertaining for about the first 2/3s of the book and then it gets a little bogged down and boring the last third.