The day they spoke in a Crenshaw parking lot, Nipsey Hussle and the man who shot him to death saw their "arcs in life were bending in different directions," a Los Angeles County prosecutor said Wednesday.
Hussle — born Ermias Asghedom — was a year removed from releasing his Grammy-nominated album "Victory Lap" and was gaining a reputation as a community hero trying to reinvest in the neighborhood where he grew up. He owned the parking lot where he was shot, a clothing store it served. He owned the whole plot of land.
Eric Holder Jr., 33, also was an aspiring rapper, but one who was "not nearly as successful, not nearly as respected" as Hussle, Deputy Dist. Atty. John McKinney said Wednesday during his opening statement in Holder's murder trial.
Despite coming from the same neighborhood and growing up in the same gang, the notorious Rollin 60s set of the Crips, the two men had "little in common," McKinney said.
Until their lives became inextricably linked, when Holder produced two handguns and took the ascendant rapper's life in March 2019.
More than three years after that deadly confrontation, Holder appeared in court Wednesday for the start of his trial. If convicted as charged, he faces a de facto life sentence.
Late Wednesday morning, L.A. County Deputy Public Defender Aaron Jansen admitted during his opening statement that his client had killed Hussle. But he said the attack was a crime of passion, rather than premeditated murder.
Jansen has previously said he believes the case is "overcharged," and he has disputed the validity of attempted murder counts against Holder for the shootings that same day of two other men in the parking lot. They survived the attack.
Holder was among several fans who had spoken to Hussle that day outside his Marathon Clothing store. Although prosecutors have described their interaction as brief and calm, Hussle raised a topic that can often prove deadly in South L.A.
"Apparently, the conversation had something to do with (Hussle) telling Mr. Holder that word on the street was that Mr. Holder was snitching," McKinney said according to transcripts of a 2019 grand jury hearing.
In a recent interview, McKinney declined to say if there was any truth to the rumor that Holder was a police informant. But the conversation seemed to enrage Holder, who returned to the parking lot later that day and opened fire with two handguns.
Hussle was shot 10 times and died a short time later. Kerry Lathan, 56, and his 44-year-old nephew, Shermi Cervonta Villanueva, were both wounded but survived, McKinney said.
On Wednesday, McKinney described Hussle's "devastating injuries." While Hussle's official cause of death is listed as gunshot wounds to the head and torso, McKinney said Wednesday that a bullet "transected" Hussle's spine, meaning even if he had survived, he would have been paralyzed for the rest of his life.
Holder was arrested two days after the shooting when a woman who served as his getaway driver turned herself in to police. McKinney identified the woman publicly for the first time Wednesday as Bryannita Nicholson, a caretaker and ride-share driver who had become smitten with Holder in the month before the shooting.
The prosecutor painted her as unwitting accomplice who has cooperated with police in spite of gangland threats to her safety, and she is expected to be a key witness during the trial.
McKinney told jurors Wednesday to expect much of the case to center on gang culture and the issues of "snitching" and "respect." He also warned that some of the witnesses he plans to call, including those who survived the shooting, are likely to be combative and uncooperative on the stand.
"Respect is everything. Reputation is everything. It's a different play on respect than you're used to," McKinney said Wednesday, referring to the rules both Hussle and Holder would have lived by in the Rollin 60s Crips. "It's kind of a perverse definition of respect … a lot of blood has been shed, not only in that gang, but in gangs across the county, over this concept of respect."
The rapper never shied from his gang affiliation. Hussle shouts out the Rollin 60s in the intro to his breakthrough 2013 mixtape, "Crenshaw," and said in a 2014 interview that he joined the gang as a teenager.
Holder faces a de facto life sentence if convicted as charged. Under state law, he would eventually be eligible for parole.
Jansen, who has previously noted that his client may have struggled with mental health issues, said Holder had checked himself into a mental health facility hours before he was arrested in the rapper's murder in April 2019.
Although Holder's trial is expected to draw significant media coverage, the proceedings are of little interest to those in the neighborhood that Hussle's death affected most.
"Court trials and murder cases ain't scarce around here, sad to say," LaTanya Ward, a friend of Hussle, told The Times last month. "The death of Black folks' futures is aplenty, both by death and the 'injustice' system."
