The street where The Notorious B.I.G. was killed

This is the location where The Notorious B.I.G. (Christopher Wallace) was killed.

It is situated at the intersection of South Fairfax Avenue and Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, California.

After-party

In the early hours of March 9, 1997, Wallace was at a Soul Train Awards after-party. Vibe magazine and Qwest Records were hosting the event in the Petersen Automotive Museum at 744 South Fairfax Avenue.

Shortly after midnight, the fire department shut down the party due to loud music and smoking violations. As a result, guests started streaming out of the building onto the street.

At around 12:30 a.m., Wallace and his entourage exited the garage and turned right, heading north along South Fairfax Avenue.

The group planned to drive to the home of record executive Steve Stoute, who was throwing a house party in the Hollywood Hills.

Bad Boy Records owner Sean Combs (Puff Daddy) was traveling in a Chevrolet Suburban, while Wallace was following him in a GMC Suburban.

Combs crossed the intersection at Wilshire Boulevard, but Wallace and his crew got stuck at a red light.

Shooting

While Wallace was stopped at the red light, a gunman in a dark-colored 1994-1996 Chevrolet Impala SS pulled up on the passenger side of the rapper's vehicle and opened fire with a 9mm pistol.

The rapper was hit four times. One bullet proved fatal, as it entered his right hip and traveled upward, striking several vital organs before stopping in his shoulder.

Following the shooting, the Impala turned right and sped east on Wilshire Boulevard.

The gunfire sparked panic and confusion, with some onlookers initially believing that Combs had been shot.

Music promoter Peter Thomas recalled the chaos in an interview with the Miami Herald:

"I talked to him one minute before he died. One minute. Everybody started driving on the sidewalks, and girls were running all over the place. They were running out of there like roaches. I knew somebody got shot."

Death

Wallace's associates rushed him to the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center on Beverly Boulevard.

They reached the hospital at roughly 12:48 a.m., by which time the rapper had gone into cardiac arrest.

Doctors immediately performed an emergency thoracotomy to open his chest wall and gain access to his internal organs. The damage was extensive, as the fourth bullet had passed through his ascending colon, liver, the right atrium of his heart, and the upper lobe of his left lung.

Manual cardiac compressions and direct defibrillation produced no response.

Consequently, Wallace was pronounced dead at 1:15 a.m.

He was 24 years old.

Aftermath

Witnesses described the shooter as a Black man in his twenties with a mustache. He was wearing a light-blue suit and a bow tie.

Although the bow tie led to speculation that the killer was a member of the Nation of Islam, many of the guests at the Vibe after-party were dressed in formal attire.

Wallace's murder occurred approximately six months after West Coast rapper Tupac Shakur was killed in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas.

Their deaths led to a collective realization within the hip-hop community that the rivalry between the East Coast and West Coast had spun out of control.

Following the killings, the feud effectively ended.

Wallace's murder remains unsolved.