The man injured during the fatal shooting of Nipsey Hussle last month has been released from jail following his arrest for an alleged parole violation.
Los Angeles resident Kerry Lathan, 56, left the city’s Men’s Central Jail on Saturday, according to the facility’s online records.
He was apprehended earlier this month by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation just days after being wounded in the March 31 incident outside Hussle’s Marathon Clothing store, where the rapper was killed.
Corrections officials announced on Thursday that charges against Lathan would be dropped, according to local TV station KABC.
Lathan’s attorney, Lauren Noriega, told HuffPost via email Sunday that “Kerry is very happy to be home with his family.”
“He is in excruciating pain due to the bullet still being lodged near his spine,” she added. “Once his physical condition improves, he and I will be partnering up to lobby the CA legislature to make changes to existing CA law to allow reformed gang members to be removed from the CalGangs database” that authorities use to track gang members.
Last week, Noriega told HuffPost her client is “a reformed gang member who was determined to make a change in his community.”
Lathan served 25 years behind bars for a murder conviction, and he may have been prohibited from associating with a known gang member or a convicted felon, though the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation wouldn’t specify exactly how he violated his parole. But the prohibition is typical for parolees. Hussle was once a gang member and openly discussed his previous ties to the Crips-linked Rollin’ 60s, but he had since reformed and became a community activist.
Furthermore, Noriega said the meeting of the two was unplanned, and occurred by happenstance when Lathan went to the rapper’s store to pick up a shirt.
In an interview after his arrest, Lathan told AllHipHop News he didn’t know Hussle well but was aware that the artist gave out clothing to former inmates, even if they weren’t friends of his.
HuffPost has reached out to the Corrections Department for additional comment.