Hey, this is Chrissy Hojo-Bashvili.

I'm the Acting Chief of External Affairs

for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

The following episode of Ear Hustle

contains language and descriptions of graphic violence

that may not be appropriate for all

listeners. Discretion is advised. I had a very ritualized process that I went

through. It was almost like every day preparing almost for a battle.

I had a silhouette target up in the basement and I'd spend five minutes drawing and dryfiring against that target.

I would run scenarios in my head in spare moments, you know,

about what happens if some guy comes out of the alley and points a gun at my patrol car,

what am I going to do?

If I'm in a grocery or a liquor store, you know, getting a Coke or something,

then somebody bursting with a shotgun, what am I going to do?

If I'm on a burglary call and I find a suspect crawling

through a window, what am I going to do? It was a perpetual constant state of preparation and

when I got in that car I was ready to go.

You're now tuned in to Ear Hustle from PRX's Radio Topia. I'm Erlan Woods and I'm Nigel Poor on

this episode of Violent Night and it's decades long aftermath. We piled in the car and headed out to my beat. On our way out there we received a call of shots fired in the area of Brooke and Madison.

Pretty sadly routine call for that area. We were heading northbound on Madison.

We saw a light colored pento with two heads up through the rearview mirror.

We lit up the car, told the dispatch of where we were at,

...