NAB NIPSEY SUSP
Cops: Beef preceded lethal shoot of rapper
Nipsey Hussle’s alleged killer was taken into custody without incident Tuesday, less than 48 hours after he allegedly assassinated the Grammy-nominated rapper outside a clothing store in Los Angeles.
A source with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said a call came in at 12:53 p.m. from someone who recognized the man thought to be suspected shooter Eric Holder, 29, at a location on Artesia Boulevard in Bellflower, about 20 miles south of Los Angeles.
The Los Angeles Police Department later confirmed Holder had been arrested.
“Thank you to both our community for the heightened awareness/vigilance, and our partners at @LASDHQ,” police wrote in a tweet.
LAPD detectives rushed to the sheriff’s station in Lakewood, Calif., where Holder was initially detained without incident. They left with the suspect in a convoy of four unmarked vehicles about two hours later, an LAPD spokesman confirmed to the Daily News.
LAPD Chief Michel Moore, speaking at a Tuesday press conference, said Holder engaged in multiple conversations with the rapper before returning to Hussle’s store with a handgun and opening fire.
He said a “personal matter” and “dispute” preceded the shooting.
“We believe they were known to each other,” Moore said.
Following the shooting, Holder ran through an alley and entered the passenger side of a waiting vehicle — a 2016 white four-door Chevy Cruze with the California license place 7RJD742, police say. Authorities say an unidentified woman was driving the car.
The woman reportedly turned herself in for questioning on Tuesday and was not immediately arrested, according to KNX1070.
Surveillance footage published Monday by TMZ showed the shooting play out in broad daylight, with two people falling to the ground as the shots rang out and bystanders fleeing in fear for their lives.
Two other victims were injured, police said.
According to online court records, Holder was convicted in April 2012 of carrying a loaded firearm in a car or public place. He was sentenced to 180 days in jail and three years of probation. A separate charge of carrying a concealed weapon was dismissed at the time.
Holder also was the suspect in a battery case filed in 2009 that was dismissed.
A nighttime vigil for Hussle outside the store where he was killed turned into chaos late Monday after an unidentified man brandished a handgun and another bystander attempted to disarm him, causing a panicked stampede that injured several people, Moore said.
Moore called Hussle’s murder a “senseless homicide of an individual who posed such an opportunity to step into a conversation to help this city work its way through a sickness, a challenge, a seemingly tragic love affair with gun violence.”
The Grammy-nominated musician, 33 — whose real name is Ermias Asghedom — was remembered at Tuesday’s press conference as someone who genuinely cared about his South Los Angeles neighborhood and was committed to making a difference.
“Nipsey Hussle was an artist who touched our city,” Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said. “He was somebody who was a gifted and brilliant artist, an entrepreneur who found global success. He was working closely with this city to help save lives and transform lives even as he was doing that for himself.”