Motorcade With Rapper Snoop Dogg Hit by Gunfire; Bodyguard Wounded

A caravan of five cars, one containing rap music artist Snoop Dogg, was sprayed with gunfire from a passing vehicle in the Mid-City area of Los Angeles on Thursday night, injuring his bodyguard.

The motorcade was headed south on Fairfax Avenue near Washington Boulevard about 9 p.m. when a car pulled alongside the group and an occupant fired at them repeatedly, police said. Two of the cars were hit and one man was injured, according to LAPD Officer Don Cox, a department spokesman.

The victim was identified preliminarily as an off-duty Inglewood Unified School District police officer who was working as a bodyguard. Authorities said he suffered a non-life-threatening wound and was taken to Kaiser Foundation Hospital in West Los Angeles.

Sources said Snoop Dogg employs two Inglewood schools police officers.

Three men were taken into custody about a mile from the scene but were released several hours later after questioning at the Wilshire Division station, Cox said.

Snoop Dogg, whose real name is Calvin Broadus, was uninjured. The intersection remained taped off near midnight as police combed the area with dogs and flashlights.

In February 1996, Broadus and his bodyguard, McKinley Lee, were acquitted of murder charges in the August 1993 shooting death of a young man in a Palms park.