'How many of you know a friend or relative who has been shot at?'
He's only 13 years old, but Benyamin Nunn already knows nine friends or relatives who have been shot -- three of them fatally.
The list of places he can't go for fear of violence -- the park, the neighborhood pool, the basketball court, basically anywhere off his block -- seems far longer than the list of places he can go.
(Tom Cruze/Sun-Times)
Some of the unedited responses the Chicago Sun-Times received from nearly 500 first-through-eighth-graders at three Chicago public schools.
"to die with violence" -- first-grade boy, Talcott.
"to be shot on the heart" -- second-grade girl, Little Village Academy.
"a gun that shoots everyone" -- third-grade boy, Talcott.
"the friend of my friend, there big, about 16 or 18, they have guns" -- fourth-grade boy, Talcott.
"to see someone aim at me! or kill me!" -- fifth-grade boy, Talcott.
"being killed for no reason" -- sixth-grade boy, Sexton.
"a person with a big gun because you donΉt know if that person likes you or not" -- seventh-grade boy, Sexton.
"My greatest fear is that my older brother gets shot. The reason I think this is because in the community we live in, it is not hard not to get shot" -- eighth-grade girl, Little Village Academy.
"I'm angry, and I'm scared at the same time. I'm mad because we can't do certain things. I'm sad because innocent people are getting shot,'' said Benyamin, who just finished sixth grade at Sexton Elementary School in the South Side's Woodlawn neighborhood.
The urban violence that has claimed the lives of 36 Chicago Public School children since September has left a wide swath of collateral damage in its wake, a Chicago Sun-Times survey of nearly 500 CPS students found.
Over and over, everyone from first-graders to eighth-graders summed up their "greatest fear'' in two words: "Getting shot.''
The most affected were fifth- through eighth-graders, a group that includes Benyamin. In those grades, the survey found:
• Nearly three-quarters have heard gunshots in their neighborhood.
• Half know a friend or relative who has been shot at, with the vast majority of those knowing multiple people who have been fired upon -- as many as 10, 11 and even 13.
• More than a third know a friend or relative who has been shot to death.
• Well over a third have been shown a gun.
"If you ask kids living in Sarajevo during the war or living in the Gaza Strip the same questions you asked these kids, you'd get very similar answers,'' said James Garbarino, director of the Center for the Human Rights of Children at Loyola University Chicago. "These are very much what kids report in situations of war zones.''
Fear of violence has even turned some children against Chicago.
If the city were gun-free, wrote one fourth-grade girl at Sexton, "It would be more quiet and I would love Chicago but that won't happen, so I hate it.''
Wrote a classmate: "I would feel good if I lived in a different city. I would not have to be scared to go outside.''
To assess the toll of street violence on CPS children, this May the Sun-Times surveyed at least one classroom of first- through eighth-graders at each of three schools, in the South, Near West and Near Southwest Sides of the city. To round out the picture, the Sun-Times also interviewed children in their classrooms and individually, and examined artwork and school projects centering on violence.
In one Sexton second-grade classroom, student art read like a cry for help.
Inspired by the gunshots she heard outside her home, one girl drew herself in the foreground screaming "ahh!'' as a man on the street blasted a gun from each hand. A boy sketched a man firing a large gun, and, with a child's misspellings, added the caption: "Shuoton is so so bad. I do not like it. Shuoton skairs me to to much. . . . Please just stop it.''
The kids had been asked to draw violence they had experienced, said their teacher, Corinne Madden. As the second-graders set to work with colored pencils, Madden said, "One student asked if he could draw a knife or a gun. I said, 'Well, draw what you've seen.'
"He said, 'I saw both.' "
The Sun-Times survey results do not claim to be a statistically representative sample of the entire system, but they do offer a broad snapshot of student experiences from three schools with different levels of exposure to violence: Sexton, at 6020 S. Langley in Woodlawn, which lost an eighth-grader to gun violence on a September evening only two blocks from the school; Little Village Academy, at 2620 S. Lawndale, where a high school student was killed at night about four blocks away; and Talcott Elementary, at 1840 W. Ohio in gentrifying West Town.
Even at Talcott, located the farthest from any student shooting death -- 1.6 miles -- surveys indicated guns and gangs are on the minds of some of the littlest students. Kids used terms their peers would probably never have thought to use 20 years ago.
A Talcott first-grader reported that his "greatest fear" is to "die with violence.'' A fourth-grade girl worried about being "caught in the middle of a shootout.'' A fifth-grade boy feared losing a loved one in "a drive-by.''
Children at all three schools used vivid, specific gun imagery to describe their "greatest fear." For one second-grader, it was being "shot on the heart.'' For a fourth-grader, it was "to get shot in the head." A seventh-grader: my "family getting shot up inside my house.''
Typically, young children fear losing a parent, getting hurt in an accident or "something terrible happening to the world,'' said Patrick Tolan, director of the Institute for Juvenile Research at the University of Illinois-Chicago. Some kids surveyed by the Sun-Times did report more traditional childlike fears, ranging from "that my mom will die and I'll be left alone without her,'' to spiders, snakes and "big dogs;" to tornadoes and heights.
But by far, the most common fear across all schools surveyed was gun-related, and the most-cited fear was "getting shot.''
Half of all fifth- through eighth-graders said their "greatest fear'' was gun- or shooting-related. The rate was highest among fifth-graders, where nearly two-thirds specifically listed guns or a shooting as their biggest fear.
"There may be kids who worry about getting shot in all communities, because that's one of the bad things they see on TV,'' Tolan said. "But in these communities, there's an extent to which that threat is very real and imminent for these kids. It's not just something they hear about. It's a real fear that it's going to happen."
"It should be of concern to us . . . because if you go to most schools in the country, that would not be the No. 1 fear kids would raise.''
While close to three-quarters of fifth- through eighth-graders surveyed had heard gunshots in their neighborhoods, only a quarter reported hearing them near their schools. In fact, of the 36 CPS students killed since September, only two were shot within a half-block of their schools in school-related incidents right around dismissal time.
"Violence is like a disease that attacks our children,'' said Talcott Principal Craig Benes. "It's something our children shouldn't have to deal with.''
Children showed various reactions to discussing the gun violence that has dominated the headlines and emotionally decimated schools.
At Sexton, which lost eighth-grader Dalvin Miller in a drive-by shooting two weeks into the school year, a few eighth-graders put their heads on their desks, and one even walked out of the room when a reporter broached the topic of guns, gangs and death. Near the middle of the classroom sat Dalvin's empty desk, topped with a sticker bearing his name and the handwritten message "R.I.P.''
But in Madden's second-grade Sexton classroom, many 7- and 8-year-olds showed no inhibitions about discussing their personal experiences with violence. When a reporter asked how many knew a friend or relative who had been shot at, a sea of hands flew into the air. Students vied with each other to share their experiences.
"Can I go next?'' one little girl begged. "Can I go?'' said another.
It turned out some children were describing shootings they had heard about, rather than attacks on relatives or friends. But many, in matter-of-fact voices, told of brothers, cousins, stepfathers who had been not only shot at, but killed. One aunt had been "carjacked" at gunpoint.
Ultimately, eight of 17 students -- or nearly half -- knew a loved one who had been shot.
"This is the next generation,'' said Madden. "They should be in shock or in horror.''
Instead, "It's nothing new. It's not as novel as it should be, which is a frightening thought.''
Contributing: Laura Castro, Sarah Baraba, Anthe Mitrakos