Nipsey Hussle was shot after ‘snitch’ comments to the accused gunman, records show
Nipsey Hussle spent part of the afternoon of March 31 signing autographs, taking pictures with fans and talking with friends at the Hyde Park strip mall where he owned several businesses.
Less than a half hour into his visit, according to court transcripts, Eric Holder approached the famed rapper, who was with a larger group, and the two shook hands. They had a four-minute conversation, and at some point, the topic turned to snitching.
“Apparently, the conversation had something to do with [Hussle] telling Mr. Holder that word on the street was that Mr. Holder was snitching,” Deputy Dist. Atty. John McKinney told a grand jury. “The conversation wasn’t particularly intense. It wasn’t particularly belligerent.”
Holder then picked up chili cheese fries from a nearby burger shop, got in a woman’s car and they drove off. Soon after, the 29-year-old man returned, a pistol in each hand, and opened fire, according to the transcripts.
Hussle fell to the ground, suffering at least 10 gunshot wounds from head to toe, authorities have testified. Before he fled, Holder kicked him in the head.
“You got me,” Hussle responded.
The narrative comes from a 515-pages of grand jury testimony
ordered released at a hearing Thursday by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Robert J. Perry after the Los Angeles Times argued in court for public access.
Holder’s public defender had
sought to keep the grand jury proceedings secret until after his trial, arguing that making the transcript public could jeopardize her client’s right to a fair trial. Holder has pleaded not guilty to murder and other charges.
The documents, which include the prosecutor’s opening statement during the May hearing, as well as the testimony of several witnesses to the killing and investigating officers, offer the clearest narrative yet about the slaying of Hussle, born Ermias Asghedom. His death sparked days of memorials and grieving far beyond his South L.A. neighborhood.
Los Angeles police have said the motive for the shooting was a personal dispute. But the documents reveal more details about the words alleged to have been exchanged between Hussle and Holder.
They include the first account from a woman Holder was dating who drove him to and from the strip mall and was offered immunity for her testimony. She was not identified by name because of numerous credible threats to her safety.
When she and Holder first pulled up to the burger joint, she testified, she spotted Hussle and got excited. She pulled into a parking lot and Holder walked over to Hussle’s group. She wanted a photo with Hussle, so she also approached and said she heard Holder telling Hussle: “Cuz, have you ever snitched?”
She snagged a photo with the rapper and went back to her car, where she uploaded it to her Facebook profile. Holder, meanwhile, picked up his fries and returned to the car.
As she drove around the block, Holder pulled out a gun and started loading it, she testified. “You’re not gonna do a drive-by in my car,” she recalled telling him. He put the gun away.
She pulled over so he could eat, and a few minutes later, he told her he’d be right back. Moments later, she said that she heard two gunshots. People ran from the area.
The woman said Holder returned angry and jumped back into her car. She testified that when she asked what happened, he said to drive away or he would slap her. She dropped him off at his cousin’s house, she said.
Holder called her later , asking if he could stay with her that night. The next day, she said, he asked for her help securing a motel room. The prosecutor asked if it occurred to her that he was trying to hide out.
“No,” she said.
By then, she was seeing social media posts implicating him in the shooting. When she confronted him at the motel later, he started breathing harder, but stayed quiet, she said. He asked her to take him to get cigarettes and food from Jack in the Box.
When she got home later that night, she saw her car — and license plate — on the news. She testified that she and her mother went to the police station early the next morning, telling a desk officer that her car was linked to a murder.
“Don’t listen to the news,” a police officer said, according to her testimony, turning her away.
She called the police later that morning, and was told to return to the station. According to the transcripts, detectives interviewed her for five hours, during which she told them that, before she heard the gunshots, Holder “wanted to do a drive-by.”
“And, I was like, ‘No, you is not fittin’ up to be doing no drive-by in my car.’ He said ‘pull around back, then,’” she told detectives, according to the the prosecutor who was reading a transcript of her interview.
A coroner testified that Hussle sustained at least 10 gunshot wounds, including to his scalp, chest, abdomen and foot. Six bullets were removed from his body.
Holder was
arrested in Bellflower two days after the shooting. An aspiring rapper who went by the moniker Fly Mac, Holder has sung of body bags, “38 gun blasts” and bloody homicides.
The grand jury panel returned a six-count indictment charging Holder, 29, with one count of murder, two counts each of attempted murder and assault with a firearm and one count of possession of a firearm by a felon. He is being held in lieu of $6.5-million bail. If convicted, he faces life in state prison.
