LOS ANGELES — As police search for the suspect in the killing of rapper Nipsey Hussle, new videos and details are emerging of what led up to the attack.
Law enforcement sources told The Times that the suspect, identified as 29-year-old Eric Holder, had some type of personal dispute with Hussle that culminated in the shooting.
Authorities have been reviewing surveillance videos and talking to witnesses in an effort to put together a sense of what happened and also identify Hussle’s killer. The sources told The Times that detectives believe the gunman is a gang member but that the motive for the shooting is more personal in nature.
Meanwhile, graphic video shows a gunman walking up to Hussle and two other men, who were standing in front of the shop the rapper owned in a Slauson Avenue strip mall. The gunman is then seen opening fire. Hussle falls to the ground and the other two victims run away from the gunman.
The Los Angeles County coroner’s office said Monday that he died of a gunshot wound to the head.
Holder was last seen in a white, four-door 2016 Chevy Cruze, with the license plate number 7RJD742.
Police released Holder’s name Monday night as a memorial at the store led to several injuries.
While a member of the crowd shared some words on the late rapper, dozens of people who had gathered outside Hussle’s store started running away. People fell on top of each other as they tried to flee amid the dense crowd, many of whom lost their shoes along the way.
Numerous police cars and ambulances raced to the scene as officers yelled at people to leave the area.
Robert Arcos, an LAPD assistant chief, told The Times that a fight appeared to have started the stampede after one person possibly pulled out a gun.
The Los Angeles Fire Department took 19 people to hospitals: two people in critical condition, including one hurt in a car accident; two people with serious injuries; and 15 with non-life-threatening injuries. The majority of the patients suffered injuries related to being trampled when the crowd rushed away.
A Los Angeles Times reporter at the scene was also trampled when the crowd ran. Reporters in the area said on social media that authorities had said at least six people were stabbed, which is thought to have caused or contributed to the chaos.
Hundreds of novena candles left in memory of Hussle — who was shot and killed Sunday in broad daylight outside one of his stores in South L.A. in a burst of gunfire that left two other people wounded — were crushed as people fled. The shards injured several people, and many were limping as they tried to find their way around police barricades. It remains unclear whether anyone was actually stabbed, or if they were injured by broken glass.
Hussle made no secret of his early life in a street gang, saying in a 2014 interview with YouTube channel Vlad TV that he had joined the Rollin’ 60s, a notorious Crips gang clique, as a teenager.
“We dealt with death, with murder,” he told The Times in 2018. “It was like living in a war zone, where people die on these blocks and everybody is a little bit immune to it. I guess they call it post-traumatic stress, when you have people that have been at war for such a long time. I think L.A. suffers from that because it’s not normal yet we embrace it like it is after a while.”
Just before the shooting, Hussle tweeted: “Having strong enemies is a blessing.”
LAPD Chief Michel Moore put Hussle’s killing in the context of a recent uptick in violence, noting that there have been 26 shootings and 10 homicides in the city since the previous Sunday.
“That’s 36 families left picking up the pieces,” Moore tweeted. “We will work aggressively with our community to quell this senseless loss of life.”
Hussle had been set to meet with Moore and Police Commission President Steve Soboroff on Monday to talk about solutions to gang violence.
“Throughout the years, as he fostered success in his music career, he chose … to reinvest and try to address the various underpinnings that fostered this environment. It’s just terrible,” Moore said Monday.
