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World

In Haiti, gangs take control as democracy withers

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PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Jimmy Cherizier zips through Haiti’s capital on the back of a motorcycle, flanked by young men wielding black and leopard print masks and automatic weapons.

As the pack of bikes flies by graffiti reading “Mafia boss” in Creole, street vendors selling vegetables, meats and old clothes on the curb cast their eyes to the ground or peer curiously.

Cherizier, best known by his childhood nickname Barbecue, has become the most recognized name in Haiti.

And here in his territory, enveloped by the tin-roofed homes and bustling streets of the informal settlement La Saline, he is the law.

Internationally, he’s known as Haiti’s most powerful and feared gang leader, sanctioned by the United Nations for “serious human rights abuses,” and the man behind a fuel blockade that brought the Caribbean nation to its knees late last year.

But if you ask the former police officer with gun tattoos running up his arm, he’s a “revolutionary,” advocating against a corrupt government that has left a nation of 12 million people in the dust.

“I’m not a thief. I’m not involved in kidnapping. I’m not a rapist. I’m just carrying out a social fight,” Cherizier, leader of “G9 Family and Allies,” told The Associated Press while sitting in a chair in the middle of an empty road in the shadow of a home with windows shattered by bullets. “I’m a threat to the system.”

At a time when democracy has withered in Haiti and gang violence has spiraled out of control, it’s armed men like Cherizier that are filling the power vacuum left by a crumbling government. In December, the U.N. estimated that gangs controlled 60% of Haiti’s capital, but nowadays most on the streets of Port-au-Prince say that number is closer to 100%.

“There is, democratically speaking, little-to-no legitimacy” for Haiti’s government, said Jeremy McDermott, a head of InSight Crime, a research center focused on organized crime. “This gives the gangs a stronger political voice and more justification to their claims to be the true representatives of the communities.”

It’s something that conflict victims, politicians, analysts, aid organizations, security forces and international observers fear will only get worse. Civilians, they worry, will face the brunt of the consequences.

————

Haiti’s history has long been tragic. Home of the largest slave uprising in the Western Hemisphere, the country achieved independence from France in 1804, ahead of other countries in the region.

But it’s long been the poorest country in the hemisphere, and Haiti in the 20th century endured a bloody dictatorship that lasted until 1986 and brought about the mass execution of tens of thousands of Haitians.

The country has been plagued by political turmoil since, while suffering waves of devastating earthquakes, hurricanes and cholera outbreaks.

The latest crisis entered full throttle following the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. In his absence, current Prime Minister Ariel Henry emerged in a power struggle as the country’s leader.

Haiti’s nearly 200 gangs have taken advantage of the chaos, warring for control.

Tension hums in Port-au-Prince. Police checkpoints dot busy intersections, and graffiti tags reading “down with Henry” can be spotted in every part of the city. Haitians walk through the streets with a restlessness that comes from knowing that anything could happen at any moment.

An ambulance driver returning from carrying a patient told the AP he was kidnapped, held for days and asked to pay $1 million to be set free.

Such ransoms are now commonplace, used by gangs to fund their warfare.

An average of four people are kidnapped a day in Haiti, according to U.N. estimates.

The U.N. registered nearly 2,200 murders in 2022, double the year before. Women in the country describe brutal gang rapes in areas controlled by gangs. Patients in trauma units are caught in the crossfire, ravaged by gunshots from either gangs or police.

“No one is safe,” said Peterson Pean, a man with a bullet lodged in his face from being shot by police after failing to stop at a police checkpoint on his way home from work.

Meanwhile, a wave of grisly killings of police officers by gangs has spurred outrage and protests by Haitians.

Following the slaying of six officers, video circulating on social media – likely filmed by gangs – showed six naked bodies stretched out on the dirt with guns on their chests. Another shows two masked men using officers’ dismembered limbs to hold their cigarettes while they smoke.

“Gang-related violence has reached levels not seen in years … touching near all segments of society,” said Helen La Lime, U.N. special envoy for Haiti, in a late January Security Council meeting.

Henry, the prime minister, has asked the U.N. to lead a military intervention, but many Haitians insist that’s not the solution, citing past consequences of foreign intervention in Haiti. So far, no country has been willing to put boots on the ground.

The warfare has extended past historically violence-torn areas, now consuming mansion-lined streets previously considered relatively safe.

La Lime highlighted turf wars between Cherizier’s group, G9, and another, G-Pep, as one of the key drivers.

In October, the U.N. slammed Cherizier with sanctions, including an arms embargo, an asset freeze and a travel ban.

The body accused him of carrying out a bloody massacre in La Saline, economically paralyzing the country, and using armed violence and rape to threaten “the peace, security, and stability of Haiti.”

At the same time, despite not being elected into power and his mandate timing out, Henry, whose administration declined a request for comment, has continued at the helm of a skeleton government. He has pledged for a year and a half to hold general elections, but has failed to do so.

—————-

In early January, the country lost its final democratically elected institution when the terms of 10 senators symbolically holding office ended their term.

It has turned Haiti into a de-facto “dictatorship,” said Patrice Dumont, one of the senators.

He said even if the current government was willing to hold elections, he doesn’t know if it would be possible due to gangs’ firm grip on the city.

“Citizens are losing trust in their country. (Haiti) is facing social degradation,” Dumont said. “We were already a poor country, and we became poorer because of this political crisis.”

At the same time, gang leaders like Cherizier have increasingly invoked political language, using the end of the senators’ terms to call into question Henry’s power.

“The government of Ariel Henry is a de-facto government. It’s a government that has no legitimacy,” Cherizier said.

Cherizier, a handgun tucked into the back of his jeans, took the AP around his territory in La Saline, explaining the harsh conditions communities live in. He denies allegations against him, saying the sanctions imposed on him are based on lies.

Cherizier, who would not tell the AP where his money came from, claims he’s just trying to provide security and improve conditions in the zones he controls.

Cherizier walked through piles of trash and past malnourished children touting an iPhone with a photo of his face on the back. A drone belonging to his team monitoring his security follows him as he weaves through rows of packed homes made of metal sheets and wooden planks.

Tailed by a cluster of heavily armed men in masks, he would not allow the AP to film or take photos of his guards and their weapons.

“We’re the bad guys, but we’re not the bad-bad guys,” one of the men told an AP video journalist as he led her through a packed market.

While some have speculated that Cherizier would run for office if elections were held, Cherizier insists that he wouldn’t.

What is clear, said McDermott, of InSight Crime, is that gangs are reaping rewards from the political chaos.

InSight Crime estimates that before the killing of the president, Cherizier’s federation of gangs, G9, got half of its money from the government, 30% from kidnappings and 20% from extortions. After the killing, government funding dipped significantly, according to the organization.

Yet his gangs have significantly grown in power after the group blocked the distribution of fuel from Port-au-Prince’s key fuel terminal for two months late last year.

The blockade paralyzed the country in the midst of a cholera outbreak and gave other gangs footholds to expand. Cherizier claimed the blockade was in protest of rising inflation, government corruption and deepening inequality in Haiti.

Today, G9 controls much of the center of Port-au-Prince and fights for power elsewhere.

“The political Frankenstein long ago lost control of the gang monster,” McDermott said. “They are now rampaging across the country with no restraint, earning money any way they can, kidnapping foremost.”

————-

Civilians like 9-year-old Christina Julien are among those who pay the price.

The smiling girl with dreams of being a doctor wakes up curled on the floor of her aunt’s porch next to her parents and two sisters.

She’s one of at least 155,000 people in Port-Au-Prince alone that have been forced to flee their homes due to the violence. It’s been four months since she has been able to sleep in her own bed.

Their neighborhood in the northern fringes of the city once was safe. But she and her mother, 48-year-old Sandra Sainteluz, said things began to shift last year.

The once bustling streets emptied out. At night, gunfire would ring outside their window and when neighbors would set off fireworks, Christina would ask her mother if they were bullets.

“When there were shootings I couldn’t go in the yard, I couldn’t go see my friends, I had to stay in the house,” Christina said. “l had to always lay down on the floor with my mother, my father, my sister and my brother.”

Christina started having heart palpitations due to the stress and Sainteluz, a teacher, worried for her daughter’s health. At the same time, Sainteluz and her husband feared their kids could get kidnapped on the way to school.

In October, during Cherizier’s blockade, armed men belonging to the powerful 400 Mawozo gang stormed their neighborhood. That same gang was behind the kidnapping of 17 missionaries in 2021.

Christina saw a group of men with guns from a friend’s house and ran home. She told Sainteluz, “Mommy we have to leave, we have to leave. I just saw the gangsters passing by with their weapons, we need to leave!”

They packed everything they could carry, and sought refuge in the small, two-bedroom home of family members in another part of the city.

Life here is not easy, said Sainteluz, the main provider for her family.

“I felt desperate going to live in someone else’s home with so many children. I left everything, I left with just two bags,” she said.

Sainteluz scrambles to scrub clothes, cook soup for her family in the dirt-floored kitchen and help Christina sitting on an empty gasoline container meticulously doing her math homework.

Whenever a gust of wind blows through the nearby hills, the rusted metal rooftop of the house they share with 10 other people shudders.

The mother once worked as a primary school teacher, earning 6,000 Haitian gourdes ($41) a month. She had to stop teaching two years ago due to the violence. Now she sells slushies on the side of the road, earning a fraction of what she once made.

Young Christina said she misses her friends and her Barbie dolls.

But, the sacrifice is worth it, Sainteluz said. Over the past few months, she’s heard horror stories of her daughter’s classmates getting kidnapped, neighbors having to pay ransoms of $40,000 and killings right outside their house.

At least here they feel safer. For now, she added.

——

Associated Press journalists Evens Sanon and Fernanda Pesce contributed to this report from Port-au-Prince.

—-

___

Contact AP’s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org or https://www.ap.org/tips/

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US

Iowa Shooting That Left Two Dead Was Likely Gang-Related, Des Moines Police Say

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Police are investigating a possible gang-related motive after two students were shot dead at an Iowa education center for at-risk youth.

Two male students, 18 years old and 16 years old, were fatally shot when a suspect pulled out a 9mm handgun and began firing just before 1 p.m. local time, a spokesperson for Des Moines Police said.

The gunfire broke out inside a common area used by the Starts Right Here education program in Des Moines. The organization’s president and founder

William Holmes,

a rapper who performs under the name Will Keeps, was injured in the shooting and remains hospitalized in a serious condition.

“The incident was definitely targeted, it was not random. There was nothing random about this,” Sgt.

Paul Parizek

said.

Mr. Walls and the two student victims were affiliated with rival gangs, he added.

Police later charged 18-year-old Des Moines resident Preston Walls with two counts of first-degree murder, along with attempted murder and gang participation. It was not clear who was serving as Mr. Walls’s attorney.

Two other suspects remain in custody.

First responders performed CPR on the victims found at the scene, according to Mr. Parizek. The students were brought to a local hospital but couldn’t be saved, he said.

The Des Moines incident comes after a mass shooting in California over the weekend left 11 people dead and another nine injured. Police are looking at a troubled romantic relationship as a possible motive for the state’s deadliest mass shooting in years. Also over the weekend, a nightclub shooting in Baton Rouge, La., injured over 10.

Des Moines police said Mr. Walls entered a common area at the Starts Right Here building where all three victims were. Mr. Holmes attempted to escort him from the area when Mr. Walls pulled away and began to shoot, Des Moines police said.

Police responding to reports of gunfire saw a suspicious vehicle leaving the area. The automobile was pulled over about 20 minutes later, roughly 2 miles from the education center, police said.

Two other people stayed in the car while Mr. Walls ran from the vehicle. A police dog helped track him down, Mr. Parizek said. Mr. Walls was taken into custody and a 9mm handgun was found nearby. Its ammunition magazine had a capacity of 31 rounds and contained three, police said. 

The Starts Right Here website said it works with at-risk youth in the Des Moines Public Schools. The nonprofit has Des Moines Police Department Chief

Dana Wingert

on its board of directors and Iowa Gov.

Kim Reynolds

on its advisory board. 

“I’ve seen first-hand how hard Will Keeps and his staff work to help at-risk kids through this alternative education program. My heart breaks for them, these kids and their families,” Ms. Reynolds, a Republican, said in a statement. 

Mr. Parizek said the program deals with children “with a variety of challenges, some that many of us can’t wrap our brain around.”

Write to Talal Ansari at talal.ansari@wsj.com

Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

Appeared in the January 24, 2023, print edition as ‘Shooting Kills Two Students In Iowa.’

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World

Haitian ambassador warns criminal gangs may overrun country | Haiti

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The Haitian ambassador to Washington has appealed to the international community to accelerate talks on deploying an armed intervention, warning that criminal gangs were in danger of taking over the country.

Bocchit Edmond made his appeal as efforts to agree to a UN resolution backing such a force appear to have stalled, and as the US and Canada have been holding urgent talks looking for ways to break the impasse.

“It is important to see how we can go fast and make sure that we take those armed gangs out of business, because if we don’t do that urgently, it’s a matter of time for them to take over the entire country,” Edmond told the Guardian.

“It is not going to be in the interests of all our closest neighbors if we allow such a thing to happen.”

Heavily armed gangs have blocked off Haiti’s main fuel terminal, bringing much of the country to a halt and triggering the collapse of basic services, amid a cholera outbreak and widespread hunger. The UN has said 96,000 Haitians have been forced to flee their homes to escape the violence.

The UN security council agreed to a resolution earlier this month to sanction gang leaders but there was no consensus on giving a green light to a non-UN force to be recruited from willing nations aimed at helping the outgunned Haitian police break the gangs’ stranglehold.

The US has said it remains hopeful that the council would eventually pass a resolution giving UN blessing to a force, and the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, visited Ottawa for talks with his Canadian counterpart and the country’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau.

Canada sent a fact-finding team to Haiti to assess the humanitarian and security needs, but Trudeau was noncommittal, saying on Friday: “Before we establish any sort of mission, we need to see a clear plan of action.”

Ned Price, the state department spokesman, said that intensive diplomatic work at the UN and outside would continue.

“The resolution that’s being discussed needs to be limited, carefully scoped. We’ve made clear it would be a non-UN mission led by a partner country, with deep and necessary experience required for any such effort to be effective,” Price said on Friday. “A number of countries around the world are working with us on this … This is a work in progress, but we are absolutely working on it.”

There is widespread apprehension that such an intervention could mire the countries sending troops in a protracted struggle with no clear exit, as had happened with previous UN forces.

Haitian activists have also warned that intervention could exacerbate the violence without offering a long-term solution. Peacekeepers deployed after a devastating 2010 earthquake were accused of systematic sexual abuse of Haitian women, and introduced a cholera outbreak which killed 10,000 and took nine years to eradicate.

Edmond, the Haitian ambassador, said a method would need to be found to get around those hurdles.

“I understand that there have been mistakes and I’m sure that we have learned from them, and we can see how we can do things differently,” Edmond said. “But the only thing I will say is: just look at the situation in Haiti, because you have a population that is defenseless in front of armed gangs, who have firepower far superior to the national police.

“There are 4 million kids who cannot go to school. All the elderly who need care at [a] hospital cannot get access to hospital, and now you have an outbreak of cholera. The companies that make potable water cannot work because the main fuel terminal is blocked. So it is the exact recipe for very apocalyptic ends,” the ambassador said. “Just look at this scenery and make your own judgment, if the Haitian people do not deserve to live like your people.”

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US

UN ready to vote on sanctions against Haitian gang leader

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UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. Security Council planned to vote Friday on a resolution that would demand an immediate end to violence and criminal activity in Haiti and impose sanctions on a powerful gang leader.

The United States and Mexico, which drafted the 10-page resolution, delayed the vote from Wednesday so they could revise the text in hopes of gaining more support from the 15 council members.

The final text, obtained by The Associated Press on Thursday, eliminated a reference to an Oct. 7 appeal by Haiti’s Council of Ministers for the urgent dispatch of an international military force to tackle the country’s violence and alleviate its humanitarian crisis.

Also dropped was mention of an Oct. 8 letter from U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres outlining options to help Haiti’s National Police combat high levels of gang violence.

A second resolution, which was still being worked on late Thursday, would address the issue of combating Haiti’s violence. It would authorize an international force to help improve security in the country if approved.

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfields said Monday that the “non-U.N.” mission would be limited in time and scope and would be led by unspecified “partner country” with a mandate to use military force if necessary.

The sanctions resolution being put to a vote Friday named only a single Haitian — Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier, whose gang has blocked a key fuel terminal leading to severe shortages. Cherizier, a former police officer who leads an alliance of gangs known as the G9 Family and Allies, would be hit with a travel ban, asset freeze and arms embargo if the resolution passes.

The resolution, however, would also establish a Security Council committee to impose sanctions on other Haitian individuals and groups whose actions threaten the peace, security or stability of the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation. Targeted actions would include criminal activity, violence and arms trafficking, human rights abuses and obstruction of aid deliveries.

Political instability has simmered in Haiti since last year’s still-unsolved assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, who had faced opposition protests calling for his resignation over corruption charges and claims that his five-year term had expired. Moïse dissolved Parliament in January 2020 after legislators failed to hold elections in 2019 amid political gridlock.

Daily life in Haiti began to spin out of control last month just hours after Prime Minister Ariel Henry said fuel subsidies would be eliminated, causing prices to double. Cherizier’s gang blocked the Varreux fuel terminal to demand Henry’s resignation and to protest a spike in petroleum prices.

Haiti already was gripped by inflation, causing rising prices that put food and fuel out of reach for many, and protests have brought society to the breaking point. Violence is raging, making parents afraid to send their kids to school. Hospitals, banks and grocery stores are struggling to stay open. Clean water is scarce and the country is trying to deal with a cholera outbreak.

“Cherizier and his G9 gang confederation are actively blocking the free movement of fuel from the Varreux fuel terminal — the largest in Haiti,” the draft resolution said. “His actions have directly contributed to the economic paralysis and humanitarian crisis in Haiti.”

It added that Cherizier “has engaged in acts that threaten the peace, security, and stability of Haiti and has planned, directed, or committed acts that constitute serious human rights abuses.”

While serving in the police, it said, Cherizier planned and participated in a November 2018 attack by an armed gang on the capital’s La Saline neighborhood that killed at least 71 people, destroyed over 400 houses and led to the rapes of at least seven women.

He also led armed groups “in coordinated, brutal attacks in Port-au-Prince neighborhoods throughout 2018 and 2019” and in a five-day attack in multiple neighborhoods in the capital in 2020 in which civilians were killed and houses set on fire, the resolution said.

In a video posted on Facebook last week, Cherizier called on the government to grant him and G9 members amnesty. He said in Creole that Haiti’s economic and social situation was worsening by the day, so “there is no better time than today to dismantle the system.”

He outlined a transitional plan for restoring order in Haiti. It would include creation of a “Council of Sages,” with one representative from each of Haiti’s 10 departments, to govern with an interim president until a presidential election could be held in February 2024. It also calls for restructuring Haiti’s National Police and strengthening the army.

The draft resolution expresses “grave concern about the extremely high levels of gang violence and other criminal activities, including kidnappings, trafficking in persons and the smuggling of migrants, and homicides, and sexual and gender-based violence including rape and sexual slavery, as well as ongoing impunity for perpetrators, corruption and recruitment of children by gangs and the implications of Haiti’s situation for the region.”

It demands “an immediate cessation of violence, criminal activities, and human rights abuses which undermine the peace, stability and security of Haiti and the region.” And it urges “all political actors” to engage in negotiations to overcome the crisis and allow legislative and presidential elections to be held “as soon as the local security situation permits.”

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Entertainment

Martin Scorsese might be taking another crack at Gangs Of New York

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The costumes of New York
Photo: Michel Boutefeu (Getty Images)

There’s always more Martin Scorsese news. No matter what’s happening in the world, you can bet your bottom dollar that we, the entertainment media, won’t miss the opportunity to talk about America’s patron saint of movie takes so hot they set the internet ablaze. And when the 79-year-old filmmaker is not criticizing the culture’s box office obsession or having Guillermo Del Toro come to his aid, he’s making film art. Lots of it. In addition to finishing up Killers Of The Flower Moon, attempting to keep Devil In The White City on track, and releasing a documentary about David Johansen of the New York Dolls, he’s also heading back to New York.

According to Deadline, Scorsese will direct the first two episodes of a Gangs Of New York television series. Written by playwright and Shantaram writer Brett Leonard and based on Herbert Asbury’s 1927 book, the series will not follow Scorsese’s 2002 film, which starred Leonardo DiCaprio, Cameron Diaz, or Daniel Day-Lewis. Yes, dear reader, if you can believe it, Daniel Day-Lewis will not be coming out of retirement for prestige television.

As noted by Deadline, this is the second attempt at apdapting Scorsese’s Oscar-nominated historical epic to TV. In 2013, he announced a series that would’ve focused on Gang Of Chicago and Gangs Of New Orleans in addition to New York. “This time and era of America’s history and heritage is rich with characters and stories that we could not fully explore in a two-hour film,” Scorsese said at the time of that announcement. “A television series allows us the time and creative freedom to bring this colorful world, and all the implications it had and still does on our society, to life.”

When Scorsese will have the time for this is anyone’s guess. His latest documentary, ‌Personality Crisis: One Night Only, premiered at the New York Film Festival last night. First, however, he needs to recast Keanu Reeves and replace Todd Field, both of whom dropped out of Devil In The White City last week.

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Entertainment

Georgia gang members arrested for targeting homes of Mariah Carey, other celebs

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A violent street gang that targeted the homes of wealthy athletes and celebrities in the Atlanta-area — including Mariah Carey’s — were charged with more than 200 crimes in Georgia, prosecutors announced Monday.

Twenty-six members of the Drug Rich gang face allegations that include kidnapping, home invasion, shootings and armed robbery over the series of crimes that also victimized social media influencers, according to Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.

In some instances, gang members bragged about their illegal behavior in hip-hop songs, which Willis said her office will use when prosecuting the case.

Mariah Carey was among the residents in Atlanta whose home was broken into, according to Fulton County prosecutors.
Getty Images

“What they do is target people who show their wealth on social media,” said Willis.

“So I do have a message for the public: Where it is kind of fun to put your things on social media and show off, unfortunately these gangs are becoming more savvy, more sophisticated in the way that they target you,” Willis said during a news conference steamed by 11 Alive News.

Carey’s home was broken into, as well as those belonging to Atlanta Falcons’ Calvin Ridley, Marlo Hampton of “The Real Housewives of Atlanta,” and Atlanta United soccer player Brad Guzan, according to Fulton County prosecutors.

Most suspects were charged in connection with the state’s racketeering and anti-gang laws in the 220-count indictment that was filed on Aug. 22.

Willis said their investigation was aided by lyrics in the rap songs.

“You do not get to commit crimes in my county and then decide to brag on it, which you do that for a form of intimidation and to further the gang and not be held responsible,” she said, referencing one lyric that mentions kicking in a door and stealing a car.   

“I have some legal advice: don’t confess to crimes on rap lyrics if you do not want them used,” Willis warned. “Or at least get out of my county.”

Atlanta Falcons player Calvin Ridley’s home was broken into, according to Fulton County prosecutors.
Getty Images

Willis said the effort to bring down the Drug Rich gang was among multiple law enforcement agencies and warned those suspects would face harsh penalties.

“We are going to find you, we are going to convict you and we’re gonna send you to prison for the rest of your days,” Willis said. “And I’m not apologizing for that.”

With Post wires

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Entertainment

Closing arguments begin in Nipsey Hussle murder trial

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The closing arguments in the murder trial of Nipsey Hussle began in Los Angeles on Thursday as prosecutors claimed his killer came strapped with two loaded weapons and a plan to shoot the rapper dead.

The rapper was murdered when nemesis Eric Holder allegedly unloaded at least 13 shots from a semi-automatic weapon and a handgun in front of the Marathon clothing store in South Los Angeles in 2019, according to prosecutors.

Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney John McKinney said Holder deliberately killed Hussle and injured two other men — and insisted the slaying had nothing to do with a “snitching allegation.”

“He walked up to the group and said to Nipsey Hussle, ‘You’re through,’” McKinney said to jurors. “He didn’t say, ‘I’m not a snitch … Why are you talking about me?’

“I submit to you that the motive for killing Nipsey Hussle had little or nothing to do with the conversation they had. [Holder] already had a preexisting jealousy toward Nipsey Hussle.”

Holder’s murder trial began earlier this month, more than three years after he gunned down Hussle — whose real name is Ermias Joseph Asghedom — on March 31, 2019.

Defendant Eric Holder, 33, is facing murder and attempted murder charges.
AP
Eric Holder is seated next to his attorney Aaron Jensen during closing arguments at his trial on Jun. 30, 2022.
AP/Frederic J. Brown

Los Angeles County Deputy Public Defender Aaron Jansen said Holder shot Hussle in the heat of passion because the “Racks in the Middle” rapper accused his client of being a snitch.

Holder, 32, is facing multiple charges, including murder, attempted murder and possession of a firearm by a felon.

McKinney said on Thursday that the attack on Hussle “was personal” and video footage showed Holder kicking Hussle while the rapper was on the ground bleeding and fighting for his life.

Nipsey Hussle allegedly called Holder a snitch.
AP/Marcio Jose Sanchez

Hussle and his accused killer grew up in the same neighborhood and belonged to the same street gang — the Rollin 60s Crips. The similarities between the two men ended there as Hussle gained stardom for his music, while Holder struggled with his own rap career, McKinney told jurors.

“When people get successful, they make money, they leave their neighborhood … this man was different,” McKinney said to jurors as he put up a smiling picture of Hussle on a large television screen. “He wanted to change the neighborhood. He invested in the neighborhood — and the neighborhood loved him.”

Jansen admitted to jurors that his client shot Hussle but denied that it was premeditated. He said Hussle’s accusation that Holder was a snitch inflamed his client. 

Hussle was murdered when nemesis Eric Holder allegedly unloaded at least 13 shots from a semi-automatic weapon and a handgun.
BACKGRID / BACKGRID
The tragic incident happened in front of the Marathon clothing store in South Los Angeles.

Jansen said Holder should have been charged with voluntary manslaughter instead of murder. The lawyer insisted his client did not intend to shoot the other two men — Kerry Lathan and Shermi Cervinta Villanueva — because he did not know them.

McKinney, however, said on Thursday that Holder planned the killing.

“The evidence showed he went over there, willing to kill everyone in that space,” McKinney said. “Nipsey was clearly the target but (Holder) was willing to kill everyone or chase them away.”

Lathan, 56, suffered major injuries from a shot to the back and is now wheelchair-bound in a convalescent home. Villanueva, Lathan’s nephew, was only grazed by a bullet. Both men testified during the trial.

The trial was continued on Tuesday after Holder was reportedly attacked by inmates after he was transported back to jail after he left court on Monday.

McKinney will continue his closing argument on Thursday and will be followed by the defense.

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World

Suspect Confessed to Killing British Journalist Dom Phillips in Amazon, Brazilian Police Say

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ATALAIA DO NORTE, Brazil—A fisherman confessed to killing and dismembering British journalist

Dom Phillips

and his guide,

Bruno Pereira,

deep in the Amazon rainforest, Brazilian police said Wednesday.

Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira, 41 years old, admitted to killing the pair on June 5 as they made their way alone up the Itaquaí River just after sunrise, police said in a press conference in the Amazonian city of Manaus. They said they suspect Mr. Costa de Oliveira to have links to the local drug gangs after arresting him with military-grade ammunition last week.

Police said they are in the process of collecting body parts deep in the forest after Mr. Costa de Oliveira led them to the spot where he said he buried the pair’s remains. Mr. Costa de Oliveira’s brother, Oseney, has also been arrested in connection to the case and a third suspect is under investigation, police said.

The announcement comes after a 10-day search for the men in a case that has prompted international outrage, with the British government and the United Nations joining a host of celebrities to put pressure on Brazilian authorities to step up their search efforts.

“This tragic outcome puts an end to the anguish of not knowing Dom and Bruno’s whereabouts,” said the journalist’s Brazilian wife Alessandra Sampaio in a statement shared on social media.

Tests on a portion of stomach discovered on the banks of the river in the search area last Friday showed it was human, authorities said, but they didn’t confirm whether it belonged to either of the two men. Mr. Phillips and Mr. Pereira were shot, according to a person close to the investigation. Police didn’t say what kind of weapon was used.

Mr. Phillips, a 57-year-old veteran correspondent who had lived in Brazil since 2007 and written regularly for the Guardian newspaper, had been reporting in the remote Javari Valley here near the border with Peru on conflicts between indigenous communities and illegal poachers, fishers, loggers and drug traffickers. He told friends it was the last big trip he needed to make to complete an upcoming book.

Brazilian soldiers searched for the missing men in a remote and lawless part of the Amazon rainforest near the border with Peru.



Photo:

BRUNO KELLY/REUTERS

Some of Mr. Costa de Oliveira’s family members said in interviews they believe he is innocent, denying he had connections to local gangs. Francisco Freitas, 67, Amarildo’s stepfather, said his stepson had returned from questioning with injuries, leading the family to believe he was tortured during questioning. Police denied the allegations.

“He was a good boy, his mother is beside herself,” said Mr. Freitas.

A swath of largely impenetrable rainforest the size of Portugal, the Javari Valley is home to the largest number of uncontacted indigenous tribes in the world, according to Funai, Brazil’s national indigenous institute.

It has also become the scene of violent crime that environmentalists, tribesmen and officials say has worsened under the administration of President

Jair Bolsonaro.

Located in the heart of South America, its networks of rivers and jungle are hard to patrol—and easy for groups trafficking in illegal fish or timber or cocaine to maneuver in.

While cutting funding for environmental and indigenous-protection agencies, the right-wing populist leader has also eased gun-ownership laws, government figures show, emboldening the region’s criminals, according to indigenous groups, human rights organizations and crime researchers.

A vigil on Monday took place in Brasília, near the headquarters of Brazil’s national indigenous institute, following the disappearance of British journalist Dom Phillips and his guide Bruno Pereira.



Photo:

ADRIANO MACHADO/REUTERS

Mr. Phillips set out from the riverside community of São Rafael near the border with Peru on June 5 in a small motorboat with Mr. Pereira, a top indigenous expert. They had completed their work and were heading back on the Itaquaí River here to Atalaia do Norte, a town of around 20,000. Then they vanished.

Police said Mr. Costa de Oliveira had confessed to sinking the men’s boat after the crime, removing the motor and weighing it down with mud.

Police said they are investigating several possible motives in the case. Mr. Pereira, 41, a father of three and longtime defender of indigenous communities, had been leading efforts to clamp down on illegal fishing in the region. He had many enemies as a result, including Mr. Costa de Oliveira, who had already threatened to kill him, police and indigenous leaders said.

The day before Mssrs. Phillips and Pereira went missing, indigenous leaders said they also saw the journalist take a photo of Amarildo Costa de Oliveira as he and other men sped past, brandishing their shotguns at them.

“It’s possible they felt threatened,” said Guilherme Torres, one of the police officials leading the investigation from Manaus, the state capital of Amazonas.

Residents of Atalaia do Norte watched as the bodies of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira were brought into port and placed in a police pickup truck.



Photo:

Tommaso Protti for the Wall Street Journal

There were other dangers. Drug gangs here, which ferry cocaine south from Peru and Colombia, typically dismember their victims’ bodies before dumping them in the river to be eaten by fish, police said. The stomach was only found, Mr. Torres said, because the air caused it to float.

“It’s a region that is out of our control, a corridor for drug trafficking,” said Mr. Torres. Gangs easily recruit poor local fishermen to provide accommodation in remote areas or to transport drugs down the river, he said.

“Fishermen know the river the best,” said Mr. Torres. “Who is better to transport drugs than a fisherman?”

Mr. Bolsonaro’s critics have accused him of belittling Mssrs. Phillips and Pereira by referring to their trip as an “adventure” in recent days. He also said anyone traveling in the region should do so with armed guards, implying the men were reckless to set out alone.

Mr. Bolsonaro has said his administration is committed to combating illegal activity in the region, adding that indigenous communities should be allowed to develop their land rather than live in poverty “like animals in a zoo.”

The region’s criminal organizations are so powerful that they have infiltrated the upper echelons of the region’s politics, said Virgilio Viana, former environment secretary for the state of Amazonas.

Many people disappear in the region, although their cases are rarely investigated or reported nationally, said Mr. Viana, who now leads the Foundation for Amazon Sustainability, a nonprofit based in Manaus.

“There are tens of Doms and Brunos killed every year,” he said.

—Vinod Sreeharsha and Paulo Trevisani contributed to this article.

Write to Luciana Magalhaes at Luciana.Magalhaes@wsj.com and Samantha Pearson at samantha.pearson@wsj.com

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World

Ransomware gang threatens to overthrow Costa Rica government

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SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (AP) — A ransomware gang that infiltrated some Costa Rican government computer systems has upped its threat, saying its goal is now to overthrow the government.

Perhaps seizing on the fact that President Rodrigo Chaves had only been in office for a week, the Russian-speaking Conti gang tried to increase the pressure to pay a ransom by raising its demand to $20 million.

Chaves suggested Monday in a news conference that the attack was coming from inside as well as outside Costa Rica.

“We are at war and that’s not an exaggeration,” Chaves said. He said officials were battling a national terrorist group that had collaborators inside Costa Rica.

Chaves also said the impact was broader than previously known, with 27 government institutions, including municipalities and state-run utilities, affected. He blamed his predecessor Carlos Alvarado for not investing in cybersecurity and for not more aggressively dealing with the attacks in the waning days of his government.

In a message Monday, Conti warned that it was working with people inside the government.

“We have our insiders in your government,” the group said. “We are also working on gaining access to your other systems, you have no other options but to pay us. We know that you have hired a data recovery specialist, don’t try to find workarounds.”

Despite Conti’s threat, experts see regime change as a highly unlikely — or even the real goal.

“We haven’t seen anything even close to this before and it’s quite a unique situation,” said Brett Callow, a ransomware analyst at Emsisoft. “The threat to overthrow the government is simply them making noise and not to be taken too seriously, I wouldn’t say.

“However, the threat that they could cause more disruption than they already have is potentially real and that there is no way of knowing how many other government departments they may have compromised but not yet encrypted.”

Conti attacked Costa Rica in April, accessing multiple critical systems in the Finance Ministry, including customs and tax collection. Other government systems were also affected and a month later not all are fully functioning.

Chaves declared a state of emergency over the attack as soon as he was sworn in last week. The U.S. State Department offered a $10 million reward for information leading to the identification or location of Conti leaders.

Conti responded by writing, “We are determined to overthrow the government by means of a cyber attack, we have already shown you all the strength and power, you have introduced an emergency.”

The gang also said it was raising the ransom demand to $20 million. It called on Costa Ricans to pressure their government to pay.

The attack has encrypted government data and the gang said Saturday that if the ransom wasn’t paid in one week, it would delete the decryption keys.

The U.S. State Department statement last week said the Conti group had been responsible for hundreds of ransomware incidents during the past two years.

“The FBI estimates that as of January 2022, there had been over 1,000 victims of attacks associated with Conti ransomware with victim payouts exceeding $150,000,000, making the Conti Ransomware variant the costliest strain of ransomware ever documented,” the statement said.

While the attack is adding unwanted stress to Chaves’ early days in office, it’s unlikely there was anything but a monetary motivation for the gang.

“I believe this is simply a for-profit cyber attack,” Callow, the analyst said. “Nothing more.”

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Associated Press writer Christopher Sherman in Mexico City contributed to this report.

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US

Fatal boat trip highlights Haitians fleeing violence

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SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Haitians are fleeing in greater numbers to the neighboring Dominican Republic, where they board rickety wooden boats painted sky blue to blend with the ocean to try to reach Puerto Rico — a trip in which 11 Haitian women drowned this week, with dozens of other migrants believed missing.

It was the latest fatal trip as U.S. authorities said they have detained twice the number of migrants in and around U.S. jurisdictions in the Caribbean in the past year compared with a year earlier.

“We’ve seen our Haitian numbers explode,” Scott Garrett, acting chief patrol agent for U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Puerto Rico, told The Associated Press.

Garrett and others say Haiti’s political instability, coupled with brutal gang violence and a crumbling economy, have prompted people to flee, with more doing so via the Dominican Republic. Both countries share the island of Hispaniola, which lies west of Puerto Rico, with a treacherous area known as the Mona Passage separating the two.

In the most recent capsizing, spotted on Thursday, 11 bodies of Haitian women were found and 38 people rescued — 36 of them Haitians and two from the Dominican Republic. Authorities say one of those rescued was charged with human smuggling. The boat capsized about 11 miles (18 kilometers) north of the uninhabited island of Desecheo, west of Puerto Rico. Dozens are believed missing.

Garrett said it’s unclear exactly how many migrants were aboard the boat, but said survivors provided authorities with their own estimates. “The numbers we’re hearing are somewhere between 60 and 75,” he said.

The search continued Friday, with the U.S. Coast Guard scouring the open waters northwest of Puerto Rico via boat, plane and helicopter.

Rescue efforts began on Thursday after a U.S. Customs and Border Protection helicopter saw people clinging to the capsized boat, said U.S. Coast Guard spokesman Ricardo Castrodad, adding that crews worked through the night.

“We always look for the possibility of finding survivors,” he said.

Authorities released images showing migrants desperately holding onto the boat in open waters as they awaited rescue. Once ashore, the migrants were escorted down a pier, with at least one wearing nothing but underwear. Some were taken to ambulances, and eight Haitians remained hospitalized on Friday.

The trips aboard rickety boats, known as yolas, which Garrett said often have only small motors to avoid detection, have long been the cheapest way for migrants to flee their country despite ongoing warnings about the danger. The smaller motors mean a longer trip, which in turn makes it more dangerous.

He said 30 to 40 migrants are usually on the boats, but those on board said nearly twice that number were on this one.

On Saturday, 68 migrants were rescued in the Mona Passage, and one woman, believed to be from Haiti, died. On May 7, Customs and Border Protection detained 60 Haitian migrants the agency said were smuggled through southwest Puerto Rico. On May 4, another 59 Haitian migrants were detained in northwest Puerto Rico. In late March, officials said they detained more than 120 migrants in three separate maritime smuggling incidents.

From October 2021 to March, 571 Haitians and 252 people from the Dominican Republic were detained in waters around Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Of the Haitians, 348 landed on Puerto Rico’s uninhabited Mona Island and were rescued.

Tom Homan, who was acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement during much of the Trump administration, said the migrants in the latest incident may have gotten lost, taking them farther from the U.S. mainland, or they may have been trying to reach Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory where they can attempt to seek asylum. Both scenarios are common.

It’s unusual to have so many women on board, he said, referring to the 11 who died.

“These migrants are placing their lives in the hands of people that don’t see them as people,” Garrett said. “They see the migrants as commodities to be traded and to make money off of.”

Pierre Espérance, executive director of the Haitian National Human Rights Defense Network, said he expects the trips to continue despite ongoing warnings about the danger.

“It’s more risky for Haitian people to stay in Haiti than to try to leave Haiti to have a better life,” he said.

A United Nations report noted that kidnappings in the country of more than 11 million people have increased 180% and homicides are up 17% in the past year. Dozens of people, including women and children, have been killed in recent weeks amid new clashes between gangs fighting over territory as their power grows following the July 7 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. The United Nations said last week that civilians are being burned alive and that children as young as 10 are being gang raped.

Haiti also has been hit with double-digit inflation, severe gas shortages and gang violence that has shuttered hundreds of schools and businesses and prompted some hospitals and clinics to temporarily close. In addition, the Biden administration has deported more than 20,000 Haitians in recent months amid heavy criticism given the country’s downward spiral.

“Even if it’s dangerous to get into a boat, it’s more dangerous for people to stay in Haiti,” Espérance said. “There is no rule of law in Haiti.”

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Associated Press reporter Elliot Spagat in San Diego, California, contributed.

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