All of this was part of Hussle’s promise to the area that raised him, at a time of sweeping change across the city: Keep the neighborhood in the hands of the neighborhood.
“Our biggest thing was for us purchasing property and using our influence and keeping businesses in the epicenter of where the gentrification is happening,” said Jorge Peniche, who was a partner with Hussle in his record label, All Money In.
Now that Hussle, whose real name was Ermias Asghedom, is gone, moving forward has fallen to his main business partner, David Gross, a Los Angeles businessman. But those plans have been complicated by revelations of a long-standing investigation into gang activity at the property by the Los Angeles Police Department and the city attorney’s office.
Hussle, a one-time member of the Rollin’ 60s Crips street gang, had been working with the city to quell gang violence. Still, the city considered his property as a stronghold of the gang and has demanded Gross take measures to stop the crime it said has occurred there over years, according to letters between city officials and owners of the property obtained by The New York Times.
In the months after Hussle’s killing, police officers on the street saw a rise in criminal activity at the property, including a second killing (a stabbing June 16), a robbery at gunpoint and the roughing up of tourists who had stopped by to pay respects to Hussle, according to a law enforcement official familiar with the investigation who declined to be named.
Hussle’s story has exposed deep divisions within the city’s leadership, underscored by the reaction after his death, with city officials praising the rapper as a model for the neighborhood, even as he was under investigation. The case has also divided the investigators themselves.
For instance, Hussle’s killing and the aftermath emboldened prosecutors in the city attorney’s office to push forward, and they prepared civil litigation against Gross, seeking to force him to take steps to improve safety at the property. Such litigation is one tool in the city’s efforts to combat gangs.
But the police chief, Michel Moore, withheld his support for that approach out of concern that such a move could anger residents of South Los Angeles, according to the law enforcement official briefed on the matter. That effectively stalled the investigation.
Police instead decided to negotiate directly with Gross, whom they met with earlier this month. They insisted that he hire armed guards and install security cameras accessible to police. Gross resisted taking these steps out of fear that members of the Rollin’ 60s would consider him an agent of the police, according to correspondence between the police and city attorney’s office obtained by The Times.
A spokesman for the city attorney’s office declined to comment. Josh Rubenstein, a spokesman for the Police Department, said, “We are continuing our work with the property owner in a productive manner to ensure the safety of the community and the safety of that neighborhood.”
About six weeks before Hussle was killed, the city attorney’s office sent a later, dated Feb. 13, to Gross listing a number of crimes it had documented at the property, which it said was a hub for the Rollin’ 60s Crips.
“The property is known as a ‘hangout’ for the Rollin’ 60s criminal street gang,” the letter said, “and has been the site of many violent and/or unlawful incidents including, without limitation, attempted murder, shootings, robberies, batteries, and unlawful firearm detention.”
Gross did not meet with city authorities until after Hussle was killed in the strip mall’s parking lot in late March. In a letter in early July, Moore, the police chief, wrote to Gross that the strip mall “has been a location of concern due to the amount of criminal activity occurring. Multiple calls for police services involving assaults, batteries and shootings have been generated at the location.”
Police have said Hussle’s killing was the result of a personal dispute, not a feud between gangs. The man charged with killing Hussle, Eric Holder, is also alleged to be a member of the Rollin’ 60s. An eyewitness said he shot Hussle after a discussion in which Hussle told Holder that there were rumors he was a “snitch.”
Shortly before he died, Hussle and Gross stood in front of the Marathon store for a closing scene of a documentary they were making, promoting their plan to leverage a provision of President Donald Trump’s signature tax cuts to help finance a series of investments in the Crenshaw district and other economically struggling neighborhoods across the country.
Before his death, Hussle and Gross were preparing to start a fund to invest in so-called opportunity zones, a creation of the 2017 tax overhaul. The zones, designated by state officials and blessed by the Treasury Department, are scattered across urban, suburban and rural areas that the government considers distressed, in every state. By investing in real estate or certain businesses in those zones, investors can realize potentially lucrative reductions in federal capital gains taxes.
The fund, called Our Opportunity, is still trying to pull together investors, including rapper T.I. and radio host Charlamagne tha God, to use the zone provisions to develop real estate in South Los Angeles.
They also hope to replicate startup incubator and coworking space Vector 90, a sort of WeWork for urban African American communities that Gross and Hussle opened in Crenshaw last year, in several additional cities. The original Vector 90 sprawls over two stories of brick and exposed wood beams, with Hussle’s rap lyrics rising up its central staircase; it reopened in June after it closed in the wake of Hussle’s shooting.
“The opportunity zone legislation just kind of turbocharged” their expansion plans, Gross said in an interview in the spring. “We’re going to create this intellectual, cultural anchor in the community.” (Gross did not respond to requests for comment for this article.)
It’s unclear what happens now, either with the investigation or Hussle’s efforts to use local investment to head off the forces of gentrification.
“We’ve seen this play out in other areas of Los Angeles,” said Peniche, the partner in Hussle’s record label, referring to gentrification. “And we see there’s very few remnants of the original people who lived there.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.