Thousands of students across the country walked out of schools to protest gun violence today sending a major message to politicians about stricter gun control. Students across Los Angeles County joined in through walkouts, assemblies, and visual messages.
The #NationalWalkoutDay comes a month after the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida where 17 people were killed. The walkouts were intended to last 17 minutes for every victim.
Students from the Miguel Contreras Learning Complex, located less than a mile away from Sal Castro Middle School where a 12-year-old student fired a gun hitting 2 students in February, held a news conference calling for the end of random searches in the Los Angeles Unified School District and more funds for counseling, according to the Los Angeles Daily News. They held a moment of silence for the 17 students killed in Parkland.
At Venice High School, 17 orange carnations are left on 17 school desks in honor of the victims of Stoneman Douglas High School during #NationalWalkoutDay https://t.co/BTWA8Dx2jz pic.twitter.com/1GIMEZNRPd
— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) March 14, 2018
Mario Ramirez, morning reporter for FOX LA, tweeted out that 3,000 students walked out from Hamilton High School.
Around 3,000 students walked out of Hamilton High School in West LA to protest gun violence. #NationalSchoolWalkout @FOXLA @NRA @LASchools pic.twitter.com/9dEndhq0nb
— Mario Ramirez (@MarioFOXLA) March 14, 2018
On the east side, students at Garfield High School learned their rights and read information about school shootings before they walked out to the field where an assembly was held, wrote Sonali Kohli for the L.A Times.
Hundreds of students walked out of class at Garfield High, but gathered in an orderly fashion for a student-led assembly. Speakers are talking about lawmakers need to legislate gun control, and the school's need to better prepare students for a possible shooting pic.twitter.com/Y49lB5Mmqf
— Sonali Kohli 🙆🏾 (@Sonali_Kohli) March 14, 2018
