Three years after Nipsey Hussle was killed in a 2019 shooting in Los Angeles, the man who shot him was found guilty of murder this Wednesday, July 6.
The Los Angeles County jury deliberated for six hours over two days before announcing that Eric Holder Jr. was guilty of first-degree murder for killing the rapper, and also found him guilty of two charges of attempted voluntary manslaughter instead of the prosecution’s desired charges of attempted murder for two other men shot in the incident.
Hussle, born Ermias Joseph Ashgedom, and Holder knew each other from both being associated with L.A. gang culture. Holder approached Hussle outside of his store Marathon clothing and reportedly accused the rapper of calling him a “snitch.” After the nine-minute conversation, Holder shot the rapper at least ten times.
With plenty of evidence placing Holder as the shooter, his attorney Aaron Jansen argued in his closing argument that he “acted in a heat of passion. And we told you what that heat of passion that he acted on consisted of – it consisted of being called a snitch by someone as famous as Nipsey Hussle and we believe that is what the evidence showed.”
The prosecution countered this argument by saying the length of the initial conversation before Hussle’s killing and the fact that the disagreement didn’t get loud or heated proved that Holder’s actions were premeditated. Holder will be sentenced this September.
Nipsey Hussle wasn’t only a rising star in the rap world with a Grammy nomination under his belt, he was also an entrepreneur and community activist who took many opportunities to prop up his home neighborhood of Crenshaw, Los Angeles.
