March for Our Lives 2018: Local gun control rally in downtown El Paso kicks off with Beto

Several hundred people — including high school and elementary school students, parents, and senior citizens — took part in El Paso's version of Saturday's nationwide March for Our Lives rallies against gun violence.

"We don't want anymore casualties. Enough is enough," Sergio Tarango, 18, an El Dorado High School student and chairman of the fledgling Sun City Activists, said to a crowd at San Jacinto Plaza.

"We are the change," Tarango said. "This generation is not the problem. We are the solution."

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His short speech came after a march from Cleveland Square Park at Santa Fe Street and Franklin Avenue, around the El Paso Chihuahuas baseball stadium, past the El Paso Convention Center, to San Jacinto Plaza, in the heart of Downtown.

The march was led by a handful of orange-shirted El Dorado students, including Arlet Copado, 17, who used a megaphone to lead the marchers in a string of chants:

"The NRA has got to go, hey, hey, ho, ho," she yelled along with the many of the marchers, to "Bust out what?," she asked. "Bullets," the marchers responded.

But the one hour, 15 minute rally and march began with the feel of a campaign rally for El Paso Rep. Beto O'Rourke, who is trying to unseat U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz in November's general election.

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Chants of "Beto, Beto," broke out in part of the Cleveland Square crowd, including from people wearing gray, "Beto for Senate" T-shirts as O'Rourke began a speech that went more than 10 minutes.

That came after more than a seven-minute speech from Texas State Sen. Jose Rodriguez, D-El Paso, who talked about the need to end gun violence, and pass stricter gun-control laws, before introducing O'Rourke.

O'Rourke, with his wife and their three young children by his side, spent much of his speech talking about the problems of gun violence.

"Let's keep the weapons of war on the battlefield and off the streets. And for that reason, because you have asked me to, I am an original co-sponsor of the assault weapons ban" legislation pending in Congress, O'Rourke said to cheers.

But he also noted the importance of young people in the nation's political history.

"When I look back at any of the important changes this country has made, the toughest changes that this country has made. They've always been led by the very youngest among us," O'Rourke told the crowd. The civil rights demonstrations in the 1960s were one of those times, he said.

"So, if we follow the student leaders here in El Paso, throughout Texas, and those from Parkland Fla., who have gone past Tallahassee and are now descending on our nation's Capital in Washington, D.C., I am confident their leadership is going to produce the results, save the lives, and make us proud," O'Rourke said.

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Copado, the megaphone wielding march leader, said she got involved with helping organize the march and rally because "I don't want to see my little brother" become a gun-shooting victim as the young students at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in 2014, she said.

Ricardo Isaac, 17, a student at Harmony Science Academy in El Paso, said he came with his parents to the rally to show support for those who want to do something to end gun violence. Unfortunately, other students from his school weren't concerned enough to attend the rally, he said.

"But for me, it (shootings) happens too much, he said."

Saturday's event ended at San Jacinto Plaza with two hours of music by various El Paso artists and poetry readings organized by the students in Sun City Activists.

Vic Kolenc may be reached at 546-6421; vkolenc@elpasotimes.com; @vickolenc on Twitter.