DON’T TURN AWAY
STUDENTS PROTEST GUN VIOLENCE WITH D.C. ‘DIE-IN’
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• Boston teens plan their own demonstration
Dozens of teenagers demanding presidential action on gun control in the wake of the Valentine’s Day massacre at a Florida high school staged a “die-in” yesterday in front of the White House in a demonstration set to be replicated next month in Boston and cities across the nation.
Students, parents and teachers lay on the pavement — arms crossed over their chests, some covered by an American flag, one holding a sign asking, “Am I next?” — in memory of the 17 people police say Nikolas Cruz killed last week at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., using a legally purchased semi-automatic rifle that is easier to buy than a handgun in Florida.
“It’s really important to express our anger and the importance of finally trying to make a change and having gun control in America,” Ella Fesler, a 16-year-old high school student from Alexandria, Va., said. “Every day when I say ‘bye’ to my parents, I do acknowledge the fact that I could never see my parents again.”
Students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School announced on Sunday that they will lead a nationwide demonstration on March 24 called the “March for Our Lives.”
By early last night, more than 3,000 people on Facebook said they were going to the Boston Common protest and another 21,000 said they were interested in attending.
“I spoke to a lot of kids at my school, and some said, ‘What’s the point? It’s not going to change anything,’” said Olivia Landry, a 17-year-old senior at Timberlane Regional High School in Plaistow, N.H., who plans to go with her friends.
“But what gives me hope this time is so many people all around the country are starting to organize. Go to support the victims and the kids who saw their friends and teachers murdered. It’s not time for another senseless fight between the right and left,” Landry said. “It’s time to focus on why no other country has an epidemic like this, with people getting killed in the very places where they’re supposed to be safe.”
And for those politicians who might dismiss Landry and other people her age, she has a warning: “I turn 18 in July, and I plan to vote.”
Graciela Mohamedi, one of the Boston protest’s organizers, is a mother of two teenage girls and a teacher at Rockland High School, where students and staff
had to shelter in place Friday after two teenagers allegedly threatened to “shoot up the school.”
“Thoughts and prayers aren’t enough. We need action,” Mohamedi said. “If it’s not time to talk about this now, when is it time? How many more people have to die? I shouldn’t have to go through combat training to do my job.”
Zinah Abukhalil-Quinonez, a Lynn Community Health Center social worker who counsels children at Ford Elementary School in Lynn and plans to attend the Boston demonstration, said that after the Florida shooting, she made her 5-year-old daughter promise that if she ever saw someone with a gun, she would “run, hide and stay really quiet.”
“It’s hard to reassure them,” Abukhalil-Quinonez said. “I can’t tell them it’s not going to happen.”