According to the NYTimes South Los Angeles officials in the Police Department and city attorney’s office were secretly investigating Nipsey Hussle up till his death. According to the city authorities and others briefed on the matter, they had an open investigation into Hussle, his property and his business associates to determine whether the strip mall at the corner of Crenshaw Boulevard and Slauson Avenue was a hub of gang activity.
The investigation into Hussle’s empire, which the city has not publicized, continues in the wake of the killing, raising the possibility that the city will take action against the rapper’s remaining business partners. As part of the investigation, the city pressured Hussle’s former landlords to evict the rapper and his associates. Instead, the landlords sold the property earlier this year to Hussle and a group of investors for $2.5 million, according to public records.
This seeming contradiction, of Hussle simultaneously being embraced by city leaders and being the focus of an investigation, reflects the divisions within the city’s law enforcement over how to deal with street gangs decades after Los Angeles became a byword for gang warfare in the 1980s and 1990s.
As some leaders try to work with former and current gang members to reduce violence, many rank-and-file officers balk at that approach, preferring harder-edged enforcement tactics. This dynamic has played out not just in Los Angeles — where the police faced harsh criticism a few years ago for setting up a meeting between a convicted kingpin from the Mexican Mafia and local officials and business leaders — but in other cities like Chicago, where the police were denounced for holding a “gang summit” in 2010. In Los Angeles, officials and city leaders have met with rap stars and gang members before, including a 2016 meeting organized by the Compton rapper the Game.
“There’s always this duality,” said Connie Rice, a civil rights lawyer who made a career of suing the police and later worked closely with the department and gang members to improve relationships.
