THE ANGELS –
Nipsey Hussle was a hip-hop star looking to lift his neighborhood up with him until a friend from the same streets shot him to death, a prosecutor said in closing arguments Thursday.
“This man was different,” Deputy District Attorney John McKinney, seeking to humanize Hussle, told the jury after two weeks of testimony that focused on the technical details surrounding the 2019 shooting. “He wanted to change the neighborhood. same friends. And the neighborhood loved him. They called him Neighborhood Nip.”
McKinney’s presentation came at the trial of Eric R. Holder Jr., who is charged with the first-degree murder of Hussle, 33, whose legal name was Ermias Asghedom.
Holder’s attorney, Aaron Jansen, who will give closing arguments later Thursday, has not denied that his client fired the shots that killed Hussle, but said mitigating circumstances make him not guilty of first-degree murder, and likely. will prompt the jury to find guilty of second-degree murder or involuntary manslaughter.
Hussle and Holder were both successful and unsuccessful rappers who grew up as members of the same South Los Angeles gang, McKinney said.
He showed jurors a photo, taken moments before the shooting, of Hussle crouching with a small boy wearing a “Crenshaw” T-shirt purchased at Hussle’s South LA clothing store, The Marathon, as they stood outside.
“He was no longer a gang member. He was a world-renowned recording artist and much more,” the prosecutor said. “It really is a shame that someone from his own gang took his life so brutally and coldly, on his own property, in his own neighborhood, for someone he considered a friend.”
Much of the testimony at trial focused on the “snitch” conversation that took place between Holder and Hussle before Holder returned with two guns.
A friend of Hussle’s who heard all the talk said Hussle told Holder there were rumors of “paperwork” suggesting Holder was talking to authorities and Holder should address him.
McKinney downplayed this apparent motive for the shooting, saying it couldn’t possibly have put Holder in the kind of heated, irrational state that would warrant a lesser charge than first-degree murder.
“This was a conversation between two homies, where one is trying to tell the other that there are some things about you that you might want to take care of,” McKinney said. “It was in the nature of a council.”
McKinney emphasized that no one who watched the conversation thought there was hostility or imminent danger.
“I assure you that the motive for killing Nipsey Hussle had little or nothing to do with the conversation that they had,” McKinney said. “There was already a pre-existing jealousy or envy.”
There was no testimony to this effect during the trial, and the defense objected.
The judge left the statement standing, but reminded jurors to focus on the real evidence at trial.
McKinney used the extensive body-surveillance and police footage surrounding the shooting to take the jury through a minute-by-minute narrative of the day.
He repeatedly showed video, taken by a camera across a parking lot, of Holder showing up with guns and Hussle collapsing to the ground.
Holder was gone for about 10 minutes before coming back and shooting. McKinney told the jury that was enough time for premeditation as defined by law.
“He thought about it and he did it,” McKinney said. “It’s all premeditated means. It doesn’t mean he planned it for weeks.”
Holder is also charged with the attempted murder of two men who were struck by gunfire, which McKinney said was no accident.
“Nipsey was clearly his intended target,” the prosecutor said. “But the evidence shows that he went there willing and with the intent to kill everyone in that space or drive them away.”
McKinney said it was because Holder didn’t know who else in the group was armed, and he was lucky no one else was.
Holder had no visible reaction to the presentation. He still bore the signs, including swelling around his eyes and staples to the back of his head, from an attack earlier in the week by two of his fellow inmates, who beat and slashed him with a knife for reasons that are not clear.