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LOS ANGELES – The memory of rapper Nipsey Hussle still hangs over Los Angeles. On a mural, his bomb-painted image is adorned with angel wings; on others, he is surrounded by inspirational quotes. A city intersection has been named in his honor. And a shopping center that he owned south of Los Angeles has become a memorial, with a steady stream of tourists and flowers.
Two days after Hussle was shot in the parking lot of the mall in March, the city's leaders stood behind a bank of microphones and spoke in front of a shaken Los Angeles. The mayor called Hussle "an artist who touched our city". The chief of police hailed him as a peacemaker. The head of the police commission said he planned to meet Hussle to discuss ways to reduce gang violence.
Just as the city's leaders hastened to make Hussle a hero south of Los Angeles, officials from the police department and the city's prosecutor's office were investigating it. According to the city authorities and the people informed about this, they opened an investigation into Hussle, his property and his associates to determine if the shopping center located at the corner of Crenshaw Boulevard and Slauson Avenue was a plaque rotating gang activity.
The investigation of the Hussle Empire, which the city has not made public, continues in the aftermath of the assassination, suggesting the possibility that the city acts against the last trading partners of the rapper. As part of the investigation, the city lobbied the former owners of Hussle for them to expel the rapper and his associates. Owners sold the property earlier this year to Hussle and a group of investors for $ 2.5 million, according to public records.
This apparent contradiction, namely that Hussle is simultaneously adopted by city leaders and is the subject of an investigation, reflects the divisions within the city police on how to deal with gangs. street decades after Los Angeles became the pretext for gang warfare in the 1980s and 1990s.
While some leaders are trying to work with former and current gang members to reduce violence, many junior officers are reluctant to take this approach, preferring tougher enforcement tactics. This dynamic was not only apparent in Los Angeles, where the police had to face strong criticism a few years ago for setting up a meeting between a pillar of the doomed Mexican mafia and local officials and business leaders – but in other cities like Chicago, where the police were denounced for organizing a "gang summit" in 2010. In Los Angeles, municipal leaders and leaders have members and gang members before, including a 2016 meeting organized by the Compton the Game rapper.
"There is always this duality," said Connie Rice, a civil rights lawyer who has pursued her career by suing the police, then worked closely with the department and gang members to improve their relationship. .
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Hussle had been open about his past membership in the Rollin 'Cs 60, a well-known street gang that emerged in Los Angeles in the 1970s. But in recent years he was working with the city to reduce gang violence. And his purchase of the shopping center, and his plan to build new apartments, was considered an important investment in the neighborhood at a time of fear of gentrification. He often employed gang men or tried to help former detainees who had already spent time on gang-related crimes.
Police said Hussle was shot in the mall parking lot by another member of the Rollin '60 – a man named Eric Holder, 29, charged with murder. The shooting was related to a personal argument. An investigation was opened into what triggered the showdown, but witnesses said Hussle told Holder that the rumor was that he was a snitch.
Police tactics to fight gangs can prevent gang members from fleeing gang associations, even for a man like Hussle, who has gained some renown while maintaining his ties to the street. In the days following the murder, officials seized the Hussle gang ties with lock up another man who was injured in the shooting, Kerry Lathan.
Mr. Lathan, who had already served nearly 25 years in prison for murder, was arrested on the pretext of violating his parole by associating with Hussle, whose name appeared in a database. of known gang members. Mr. Lathan stated that he hardly knew Hussle, but that he often helped former detainees and gave Mr. Lathan clothes. (He was released by the Department of Corrections after the case was brought to the attention of Governor Gavin Newsom and he intervened.)
"I think it's about the complexity of gangs, their gangs and their gangs," said Jorja Leap, a professor at the University of California at Los Angeles, who works with gang members and often testifies. as an expert with gangs. related tests. "I think in the end, Nipsey Hussle was a model of anti-fraud, keeping the neighborhood in the hands of the neighborhood. But the inhabitants of these regions all have a past.
She continued, "Someone can be a hero, someone can also have a past. Neighborhoods may be eager to have places of assembly and public safety. But for better or for worse, this may or may not include gang members. "
As the story unfolds, Hussle's story as a hero has solidified in the spirit of the city. This puts tremendous political pressure on investigators to recoil in the face of worry that an overly aggressive investigation could harm relations between the city, the police department and the southern black community of Los Angeles. But at the same time, the murder has emboldened the investigators, who see the type of violent act that, they feared, could happen on the site.
[[[[Read Walter Thompson-Hernandez's personal essay on what Nipsey Hussle meant for him and the city of Los Angeles.]
It is unclear what motivated the investigation of the Los Angeles Police Department and the City Attorney's Office. The investigation, however, focuses on the shopping center itself, which includes the Hussle's Marathon Clothing store, a cell phone store, and a hair salon, and whether it is a shopping center. criminal activities.
Josh Rubenstein, a spokesman for the police department, will not discuss the details of the ongoing investigation, but said the department had negotiated directly with Hussle's latest partners on the property "to mitigate some of these issues related to crime. " the mall is David Gross, a Los Angeles businessman, who was not immediately available to comment.)
Brandece Harris-Dawson, a Los Angeles City Council member, said her office has been searching for answers to the survey for years on behalf of Hussle and his business partners.
"I think that all members of the community will do everything in their power to keep the projects that they have started," he said. "And it's a very puzzling hiccup in this process."
A spokesman for the city's prosecutor's office said he could not comment on an open investigation.
Such surveys, called mitigation or nuisance probes, have long been a tool in the city to suppress gangs. They resulted in evictions and, in some cases, property foreclosures.
The city attorney's office has described the essential weapon reduction program in "the arsenal against gangs" of the forces of order. Rather than targeting indicted individuals, the program focuses on public and private spaces – the physical territories essential to the reach of a neighborhood gang.
In recent years, city attorney Mike Feuer has filed numerous lawsuits against homeowners for allowing gang activity, including a duplex in south Los Angeles where prosecutors said that there was a "toxic combination of gangs, guns and drugs"; and a motel in Van Nuys whose officials said he was plagued by prostitution, drugs and violence.
These types of investigations have been much less controversial than the civil orders prohibiting alleged gang members from associating with each other and have long been a vital tool for Los Angeles gang targeting. Last year, a federal judge banned the city from enforcing most of these injunctions on the grounds that they violated the right to due process.
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Critics have long recommended gang injunctions, as well as the state database called CalGang – which still seems to bear the name of Hussle at the time of his assassination – to give the city a way to qualify criminalizing interactions with gangs. friends and family members who can wear the same name.
"It can happen where you can not hang out with your brother," said Edward Latessa, a professor of criminal justice at the University of Cincinnati. "It's ridiculous, is not it?"
Last April, Snoop Dogg, Stevie Wonder and other celebrities packed the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles for a memorial to Hussle. Jay-Z and Kendrick Lamar sent statements – and the music filled the arena as fans filled the streets. During the ceremony, the rapper's brother and business partner, Samiel Asghedom, stifled him crying in front of the crowd and recounted how they had defied the city's efforts to expel them from the mall.
"I do not know if anybody knows it, but we received 30 days' notice and they kicked us out of all the companies we owned in the lot," said Asghedom, explaining that the owners had apologized, but that the city and the police were putting pressure on them for them to expel Hussle and his partners.
He added that the owners – who had refused to comment on this article – had told them, "If you are still interested in buying the land, you know, rather than firing yourself, we are ready to sell it to you . . "
This triggered a frantic race to raise the $ 2.5 million needed to purchase the property.
"Honestly, I do not know how we did it, but we were able to close and get the lot," he said. "And Nip was so proud of that."
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