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donate today at Damon Runyon.org slash donate. To the person I horned I can only guess how difficult it is for you to hear from me.

I imagine to be the last person you want to hear from.

I was wrong on so many levels and I sincerely apologize.

I deeply regret and am ashamed of my behavior on that hurtful evening.

This is Tommy Shacor Ross,

and this apology took him many months to write,

after many decades of avoiding the question of whether he should write it at all.

And not a day passes without me thinking of the hurt I'm responsible for.

I never want to feel this way again, nor do I want to cause anyone else to suffer the way you have.

In 1985, Shakor was 19 years old and active in a gang in Los Angeles.

I started a crime spree that led to me sexually assaulting women.

And it culminated into a gang-related murder.

It happened in a liquor store.

I went outside, went to the car I was in, and when the person came outside the liquor store,

I approached him and I shot him five times. Four days after the murder that I committed, my mother and little brother were killed in retaliation.

For the murder he committed, Chakor was arrested, put on trial and convicted.

He would spend more than three decades in prison.

And for most of that time, he avoided dealing with what he'd done, both the crimes themselves and the reasons he committed them.

At a young age I was exposed to childhood traumas that wasn't processed.

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