We can interrupt the path to gang membership and gang engagement," Moore said.
Townsend uses their influence to inspire something else: peace.Īt a news conference on crime statistics earlier this year, Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore said gang violence spiked in the first quarter of 2019 before Hussle's death, but that the work of gang interventionists, faith leaders, community volunteers and others helped to reduce crime and the number of shooting victims to the lowest numbers in 21 years. Younger generations idolize elders who drive flashy cars and wear expensive clothing. The celebrity status of gangs presents both a challenge and an opportunity for interventionists like Townsend. Gang intervention has a long history in Los Angeles, a city known for its notorious street crews immortalized over the decades in music and culture. He added that while Hussle's killing didn't necessarily spawn peace talks, many of which were already on the table, "it certainly pushed the conversation in that direction, stronger and more firmly." 'Aren't enough people dead?' "That was certainly inspired by his death," Alex Alonso, a gang expert and professor of Chicano and Latino studies at California State University, Long Beach, said. After his killing, gang members of different stripes - Bloods, Crips and others - marched in the hundreds to a memorial in his honor. The dispute was rooted in something personal, police added, and was not related to a shared gang affiliation with the Rollin' 60s.īefore his death, Hussle encouraged peace among gangs, according to police, and he performed with rival Bloods-affiliated rappers as a way to set an example. Police said the men actually had several conversations outside of the store that day, but Holder turned violent, confronting the rapper with a gun in each hand.
People mourn the shooting death of musician Nipsey Hussle outside of The Marathon Clothing store on Slauson Avenue in Los Angeles on April 7, 2019. The men shook hands and their conversation turned to the topic of snitching, witnesses said, according to court documents. Prosecutors told a grand jury last May that Holder introduced himself to Hussle as the rapper was signing autographs outside of his clothing store and talking with fans. He pleaded not guilty and remains held on $6.5 million bail awaiting trial. He was charged with one count of murder, two counts of attempted murder and one count of possession of a firearm by a felon. Two days later, police announced the arrest of a suspect, Eric Ronald Holder Jr., a 30-year-old aspiring rapper and suspected gang member. Two others - an acquaintance and the man's nephew - were also wounded. On the day he died, Hussle was shot 10 times with rounds piercing his lungs and severing his spinal cord. "You get close to feeling like you're going to throw away your freedom, your life, your opportunity," he said in the interview. In a 2018 interview with a Dallas radio station, Hussle described experiencing several "wake-up calls" that inspired him to become an entrepreneur and leave behind street life. With his rise in the hip-hop scene, he bought the property in 2017 and also opened a co-working space, Vector 90, nearby in his native Crenshaw neighborhood.
Hussle, whose stage name was a play off of comedian Nipsey Russell, sold CDs out of his car as a fledgling rapper in that strip mall. On March 31 of last year, Hussle, 33, was gunned down outside his South Los Angeles store, Marathon Clothing, which was inside a strip mall that served as a gathering place for the gang. "He's still just the best dude." The rise of HussleĪs an activist, Hussle, born Ermias Joseph Asghedom, spoke openly about his past membership with the Rollin' 60s, a Crips street gang that formed in Los Angeles in 1976. "That was Nipsey," longtime friend Anthony Fagan said.
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