Inside the manhunt for suspect in Nipsey Hussle shooting
The two-day manhunt for the suspect accused of shooting Nipsey Hussle ended on a nondescript street in Bellflower on Tuesday morning.
Eric Holder, 29, is accused of killing the famed rapper and wounding two others Sunday in an attack that shocked Los Angeles and brought widespread mourning.
Here is what we know about the dragnet:
The attack
Hussle was a huge figure in South L.A. A successful rapper, Hussle was also a community activist who was working to revitalize his community and reduce gang violence. He had planned to meet with L.A. police officials this week.
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.”
He was outside his shop on Slauson Avenue when a man approached and opened fire. Hussle was fatally wounded and two others were also shot.
The video
Authorities looked at various videos from local businesses.
Graphic video from a surveillance camera shows a gunman walking up to Hussle and two other men in front of the shop the rapper owned in a Slauson Avenue strip mall. The gunman opens fire, and Hussle falls to the ground as the other men run from the gunfire.
Detectives talked to witnesses as well as people in Hussle’s circle to get a sense of what happened and a possible motive.
On Monday, police identified the suspect as Eric Holder, 29. They urged the public’s help to locate him.
Authorities allege Holder got into a dispute with Hussle on Sunday. After a conversation with Hussle at the store, Holder left, then returned with a handgun, spraying Hussle and two other men with bullets, police said.
The driver
Witnesses had told authorities that after the gunman fatally shot the rapper, he raced into a waiting vehicle and sped away.
On Sunday, police believe this was a getaway car waiting for the gunman.
On Tuesday, a woman who was driving the car turned herself in to authorities.
According to sources, she told police she didn’t know the gunman had just shot Hussle when she picked him up. She was released from custody without charges.
The capture
A resident in Bellflower told authorities a man matching the description of Holder was walking down Artesia Boulevard. Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies raced to the scene and found Holder standing in a parking lot of a business.
Confronted by deputies, he offered no resistance and surrendered without incident, according sheriff’s spokeswoman Nicole Nishida.
Holder was handcuffed and searched and put into the back of a sheriff’s cruiser.
Los Angeles police detectives went to the sheriff’s Lakewood station, where they confirmed the man they identified was in fact Holder.
The suspect
Holder was an aspiring rapper. He went by the moniker Fly Mac. His Instagram handle was “ima_god_in_da_streetz.” He sang of body bags, “38 gun blasts” and bloody homicides.
Holder is also believed to be a gang member, LAPD Chief Michel Moore said. But police do not believe the shooting had anything to do with gang rivalries.
Holder was convicted in 2012 of carrying a loaded firearm and was sentenced to 180 days in jail and three years of probation, court records show.
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