‘Just putting a bandage on it’: one American classroom’s struggle with daily gun violence

Across the US, Black and Latino youth are more likely than their white peers to have a gun homicide happen near their home each year, according to a recent UC Davis study. Photograph: Felix Uribe Jr/The Guardian

It was just before 11am on a Friday and the hallways of Stege elementary school in Richmond, California, were quiet save for the muffled sound of children’s voices coming through the classroom doors.

Behind the heavy doors of Hannah Geitner’s fifth-grade classroom, 26 students were seated at small tables and on a cozy green rug. It was sunny and warm out, but inside, it was impossible to tell; the room’s windows had yellowed over the years.