Child Injured
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An empty desk.
Summer school started. The desks in my second-grade classroom are arranged in a circle. When I took roll, he did not answer.
While he was sleeping, he was shot. Twice.
Instead of being part of our classroom circle, he was in the pediatrics ICU. I wish I could take those responsible to this 7-year-old’s bedside.
His desk and his name tag are waiting. So are we.
Yesterday there was a series of “bangs” outside. I ran to peer through the small window in the door. Fireworks, as it turned out. “I thought it was a gun,” one child said. When I was her age, I would have known it was fireworks.
ERIN O’BRIEN
Redondo Beach
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