Gun violence has become all too familiar for students across Virginia. That was the message at a Students Demand Action walkout protest Friday afternoon.
Virginia is no stranger to school shootings - going back to Virginia Tech in 2007. But what feels like a memory to some is all too familiar to many students at Richmond City Public Schools.
“Politicians love to stand in front of cameras and claim to be protecting kids," 11th grader David told fellow students. "But where was that protection when I was in Norfolk, back when I was a student trying to learn, forced to crawl under a desk because another student brought a gun to school.”
He was standing on top of a picnic table in front of about 100 other students at the city’s Open High School. Their clear backpacks, part of the schools’ security policy, lay nearby on the ground.
Students Demand Action walkout organizers and Open High juniors Kai James, Lucy James Howlett and Rose Woodward said they hope maybe they can be the generation that ends the trend.
“All of us, when we were in 8th grade, there was a shooting at the graduation at the Altria theater and it just affected a very important moment in so many students’ lives," James said.
"It seems like such an important issue, I mean, people are getting shot at school," Howlett said.
And Woodward: "Adults, people with fully formed brains, will understand they are not focusing on the correct thing.”
Friday’s protest went off without incident - but students about 80 miles east at Kecoughtan High School in Hampton were evacuated earlier in the morning after a gun was found in a student’s bag there.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
