Student walkouts nationwide mark Columbine, push for new gun laws

Doug Stanglin | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption David Hogg joins Parkland students in Columbine walkout David Hogg was one of dozens of students who walked out of Marjory Stoneman Douglas in remembrance of the 13 who died in the 1999 Columbine shooting.

Students in Florida, Colorado and Washington, D.C., joined more than 2,700 planned walkouts coast-to-coast Friday marking the 19th anniversary of the Columbine High School shooting in an effort to push for stronger national gun control.

A Connecticut teen started the plans for the National School Walkout just hours after the Feb. 14 school massacre in Parkland, Fla., that left 17 people dead.

The national walkout was the latest effort by students around the country to keep the movement alive heading into November elections. In the first walkout on March 14 students left their classes for 17 minutes in memory of the 17 Florida victims. On March 24, millions — led by Parkland students — turned out nationwide for the March for Our Lives rallies.

On Friday, organizers encouraged students to leave class at 10 a.m. local time and gather in honor of shooting victims. Many also planned rallies calling for tougher gun laws.

In suburban Denver, the Columbine High School community marked the 19th anniversary of the 1999 massacre with a day of service, instead of a walk out.

The school campus was closed to the public Friday and dozens of students painted picnic benches, trimmed bushes and and swept sidewalks in a nearby park. The day of service is an annual tradition used to observe the April 20, 1999, attack that killed 13 students and staff, along with the two student gunmen.

A small number of Columbine students participated Thursday night in an after-school rally with about 100 Parkland students focused on increasing youth voting. The Parkland students, who are still grappling with their own school shooting three months ago, said meeting with Columbine students helped them feel connected to a greater cause.

“They thought they were burying us. They didn’t know we were seeds,” said Emmy Adams, a senior at nearby Golden High School who helped organize the rally. “They didn’t know we would turn hate into action.”

Nearly 100 students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where 17 people died in the Feb. 14 shooting, joined rallygoers in Colorado, staying with local families who helped fund their trips.

The Florida students, who said they were on excused absence from school, also planned to participate in Friday's nationwide walkout.

"It just feels surreal. We were born knowing what Columbine is,” Marjory Stoneman Douglas senior Michelle Dittmeier said after visiting the memorial to the victims. “I came here to not feel alone. And this really helps you to feel you’re not alone.”

In a grim reminder of the threat of gun violence, walkouts at schools in Marion County in Florida were canceled Friday after a student opened fire at a closed classroom door at Forest High School in Ocala, Fla. A student was taken into custody after wounding a fellow student in the ankle, then dropping his weapons and running away, the Associated Press reported.

In Washington, hundreds of students gathered at Lafayette Park across from the White House to sit in silence for 19 minutes as the names of students who have died as a result of school shootings were read out loud. Then they marched to the Capitol.

199 T-shirts hang on the front fence of Bethesda Chevy Chase High School. Each represents a teen killed this year due to gun violence. There are also 12 orange T-shirts memorializing the students killed in the Columbine shooting 19 years ago today. pic.twitter.com/FZfqFxjXJg — Suzanne Kennedy (@ABC7Suzanne) April 20, 2018

Emma Cochran, a sophomore among some 60 students from Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School, said that after the March 24 rallies, "I feel like it (the movement) got silenced again so I'm here to show that we're still here to scream."

"We haven't given up, we're not going to stop fighting until we can all vote and finally make a change," she said.

In Portland, students from at least three high schools banded together to organize a rally downtown and a march to city hall.

"When the news from Parkland came out, we thought, 'Really?' Another shooting with an AR-15?'" said student organizer and Franklin High junior Annika Mayne, oregonlive.com reported. "We need to do something with intention. We need to do something for students by students."

Contributing: Trevor Hughes, Anna Kook