STUDENTS SAY ‘ ENOUGH’
Thousands of Chicago and suburban students join national movement movement in walking out of school to protest gun violence
Thousands of students in Chicago and its suburbs walked out of class Wednesday morning, joining a nationwide protest for gun control that was sparked by a mass shooting last month at a Florida high school.
The National Walkout Day was officially timed for 17 minutes — one for every victim killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
Though Chicago has been spared a mass shooting inside a school, gun violence is hardly new for its students, so their protests against gun violence with their peers nationwide also named specific friends who’d been killed by guns here.
“I guess you could say it’s just an ordinary thing, on a day- to- day basis,” 17- year- old Fabian Chavez said outside John Hancock College Prep High School near 55th and Pulaski, amid cries of “we call bull----.”
Fabian held a “Justice for Vic” sign — a reference to a Hancock student, Victor Felix, 16, who was shot and killed two years ago about two blocks from the school. His name still prompts tears among his classmates who’ll graduate without him in June.
“All due respect to the 17 kids we’re paying respect to, but also I wanted to pay tribute to a friend we lost as well, so I think our lives matter as well,” Fabian said. “Everybody knew him in the school, so it was pretty devastating.”
Hancock staffers estimated that about 700 students, most of Hancock’s 950 kids, joined the march. A large stream of kids circled the entire building before stopping in front of the main doors to release 17 white balloons. Teachers, security guards, and a Chicago Police officer stood by the peaceful rally sanctioned by the district.
The students held slips of paper bearing words to a number of chants, many targeting President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, but they yelled one the
most, over and over: “No more dead kids.”
More protests were happening downtown, after school, said Amal Salem, an 18- year- old senior at Hancock who organized her school’s walkout.
“It’ll be really fun, it’ll be really cool, we’re gonna get what we want,” she told the crowd, and as her classmates filed back into the building, she explained what that meant:
“We want gun control. We don’t necessarily want to ban guns, we just want more control, more regulations. Because if we can’t have those regulations and anyone can get guns, then nobody’s safe. We need to be in school, we need to be safe,” she said. “We don’t want to have to wait until something like Parkland happens to our school. That is why we are walking out right now, that’s why we are stopping our education for 17 minutes because we want something to change before something happens.”
Though the protests generally were peaceful, students at Kenwood Academy High School said they saw five classmates handcuffed. A group had been marching toward Lake Shore Drive, hoping to block the nearby thoroughfare. A 16- yearold girl was taken away in a Chicago Police Department vehicle, a police spokesman said, after walking into the road’s traffic lanes.
“She was placed into custody for reckless conduct and transported to the 2nd District,” but was released without any charges, the spokesman said.
Kenwood students wanted to draw attention to shootings happening closer to home.
“We have a significant amount of shootings that have gone unjustified in the black community as well,” Kenwood senior Mariah Monroe said. “So basically we’re walking out to protest. We need to put the guns down; we need the police to put these guns down. We need justice for our people and for people everywhere. To see this amount of people walk out, it makes me feel good ... it makes me know I’m not alone.”
“WE DON’T WANT TO HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL SOMETHING LIKE PARKLAND HAPPENS TO OUR SCHOOL.’’ AMAL SALEM, Hancock High School senior