LOS ANGELES — Detectives investigating the 1997 murder of Notorious B.I.G. (a.k.a. Biggie Smalls) continue to focus on the role that jailed Death Row Records head Marion "Suge" Knight might have played in the rapper's death. Knight was named a suspect in the case in April.

Police continue to review and follow up on evidence obtained in April through searches of locations linked to Knight, Lt. Al Michelena of the Los Angeles Police Department said Tuesday.

"We are in the very boring part of detective work, going over records and [material] we got from our search warrants, talking to people and moving along at our slow and deliberate pace," said Michelena, who leads the investigation in the robbery and homicide division of the LAPD.

Michelena called Knight a "possible suspect" in the case.

Meanwhile, Knight's lawyer, David Chesnoff, said Wednesday (July 21) that police suspicions regarding his client will prove groundless. "It's our position that there's nothing there," the Las Vegas attorney said.

Among the theories police are investigating is a possible murder-for-hire plot involving Knight, who was jailed for a probation violation at the time of Notorious B.I.G.'s death. He has not been charged in the case, and the only other suspect is the gunman who shot Biggie Smalls — the rapper known for such morbidly prescient tunes as "You're Nobody (Til Somebody Kills You)" (RealAudio excerpt) — as he sat in a GMC Suburban on March 9, 1997, Michelena said.

In April, police searched the offices of Death Row Records in the Wilshire area of Los Angeles, seizing business records and a metallic-purple Chevrolet Impala that matched witnesses' descriptions of the vehicle used in the shooting. They also searched the apartment in which the grandmother of Knight's girlfriend lived.

Michelena said the evidence was returned after police made copies of business records and materials found in the search. The car also was analyzed and returned. He would not comment on the results.

"They returned everything, so I imagine they don't need it anymore," Chesnoff said.

Chesnoff would not comment on his reaction to Knight's remaining a suspect in the case. "I consider Suge a political prisoner, so whenever anybody from law enforcement says anything bad about him, it doesn't surprise me," he said.

Defining what he meant by "a political prisoner," Chesnoff said, "that he is an African-American man who acquired a great deal of success and I think he threatened people as a result."

Michelena stressed that the search warrants do not signify that police are closing in on Knight or plan to charge him anytime soon. "Those search warrants were not the culmination of the investigation and now we're ready to put the hammer down," he said. "That was just a tool and another part in an ongoing investigation, a very long, 2-year-old investigation. A lot of times when we do search warrants, it's usually a signal that, 'OK, we got it; let's go get 'em.' That's not the case in this situation.

"We've got a lot to go through. It's a nightmare."

The investigating team has spent the two years since the death of Notorious B.I.G. (born Christopher Wallace) going through "literally hundreds, maybe a thousand," leads in the case, Michelena said.

"We've got people that do nothing but investigate [those leads]," he said, adding that police still receive occasional tips. "Regardless of who we end up charging in this case, we can't go to court until we investigate every tip, because obviously, the defense would say, 'How about this one? You never checked this one — now that's your killer, not my client.' "

The team assigned to the case includes four detectives from the robbery and homicide division who are primarily devoted to the investigation of the death of Notorious B.I.G. Two more detectives from a specialized division also are available to help as needed, Michelena said.

Knight is serving a nine-year prison term for violating his probation in connection with a 1992 attack on two aspiring rappers in a Hollywood studio. He was jailed in November 1996, after a judge found that his role in beating a Los Angeles man — an assault caught on videotape by a Las Vegas hotel's surveillance system — violated the terms of his probation.

In May, Knight lost a bid for early freedom when the California Court of Appeals denied him a new sentencing hearing. Chesnoff said he was "looking forward to Suge getting out and going back to work," adding that the time will come "soon."

Police attempted to speak with Knight about the Biggie murder case in April, but the label head refused. Chesnoff said his client has not spoken to police, while Michelena declined to comment on whether his team had talked with Knight.

Six months before Biggie's death, one of Knight's most successful artists, rapper Tupac Shakur, was killed when unknown assailants fired a barrage of bullets into a car in Las Vegas. Knight, who was also in the car, was wounded. That case, too, remains unsolved.

The two murders provoked debate in the music industry. Some linked them to a so-called war between such East Coast rappers as Notorious B.I.G. and such West Coast rappers as Tupac Shakur; they suggested Biggie was murdered in retaliation for Tupac's killing.

Investigators feel strongly that Biggie's murder was "not just a one-man operation," Michelena said. "This took some coordination, but believe me, we'd be very happy to get the gunman and to get the people responsible for ordering the murder. I'll take one or the other, but I'd rather have both."

Michelena said the most difficult aspect of solving the Notorious B.I.G. murder case is people's reluctance to talk, "out of fear for their lives, out of loyalty to people involved, somewhat similar to gang murders."

"You're talking about a tight-knit music community and people involved in this community who have been prone to violence in the past," he said. "As a witness or someone who has had knowledge, you'd be dumb not to be a little fearful." He added that witnesses sometimes deny the protection offered by police.

"There's people who know about this murder," he continued. "But that's the biggest stumbling block: getting people to talk. That's in any murder and it's no exception in this case."

Yet Michelena said he's satisfied they've made sufficient progress in the investigation. "We're a long ways from calling it quits," he said. "At some point, you might end up putting the case to bed without ever solving it. Sometimes that happens.

"But we gotta be optimistic. We gotta think that way. When we stop thinking that way, we'll put it on the shelf."