The death of Nipsey Hussle is still having far-reaching reverberations throughout hip-hop and pop culture as the full extent of all the work he was doing comes to light, but at least one of the negative effects has reached a positive conclusion. Kerry Lathan, the 56-year-old man who Nipsey was reported as helping with clothes when he was shot in the parking lot of his Marathon store, was arrested shortly after the shooting for violating his parole by associating with “known gang member” Nipsey — despite the fact that he had also been shot as well. Fortunately for him, it appears that the Department of Corrections has ruled in his favor regarding the case against him according to ABC 7’s Miriam Hernandez, who reported on Twitter that Lathan’s case has been dismissed.
COURT SURPRISE: Dept of Corrections dismisses case against parolee Kerry Lathan who was wounded in Nipsey Hussle shooting. CDC had earlier said that Hussle was a recorded gang member and that Lathan violated parole by talking to Hussle that day.@ABC7Courts pic.twitter.com/qrr23UqViC
— Miriam Hernandez (@miriamtvnews) April 18, 2019
Lathan told VladTV during an interview that he was not meeting NIpsey at the store, as had been previously reported, but that Nipsey was in the parking lot and Lathan felt the store’s owner could help him out with a stock issue. While this contradicts earlier reports that said Nipsey went to the store without security to help his friend out with some fresh clothes after he had just ended a 20-year sentence for murder, in either case, it seemed that the claim against him was flimsy to begin with and that the punishment was outsized and unfair to impose on a man who’d just been shot.
Last week, it was also reported that the corner where the Marathon store is located will be renamed Nipsey Hussle Square in the late rapper’s honor.
