The email that landed in my inbox was spare and direct:
“Years ago you wrote an article about Brandon Spencer. A young black man convicted for shooting into a crowd. I think you should listen to this podcast and consider writing another article about Brandon.”
I’ve spent decades writing about violent crime, but I knew immediately which article she meant.
In April 2014, I’d written a column castigating Spencer, who had just been sentenced to 40 years in prison for a mass shooting that wounded four people at a Halloween party on the USC campus in 2012.
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The column was a harsh take on a tragic case. I was sick of writing about the innocent victims of senseless gun violence, like 7-year-old Evan Foster, who was caught in the crossfire of a gang feud at an Inglewood park and died in his mother’s arms.