Southern California Students Participate in National Student Walkout
About 200 students, parents and community members participated in a national high school walkout event at Redondo Union High School on Wednesday morning at 10 a.m.
Schools across Los Angeles county, as well as the nation, joined in the demonstration Wednesday that called for gun reform and safety for students, just one month after a gunman killed 17 people at a school in Parkland, Florida.
See images from the country-wide walkouts (Story Continues Below)
Demonstrators gathered on the corner of Diamond St. and Pacific Coast Highway chanting, “enough is enough.” Many carried signs that read messages like, “end gun violence” and “common sense gun laws.” Students carried white roses that had the names of those who had been killed in the Sandy Hook and Parkland school shootings.
Luis Alfredo Vasquez, a father to a freshman student at Redondo Union High School said he was proud to see what his daughter and other students were doing.
“I’ve never seen anything quite like this in the 10 years since I’ve been here,” Vasquez said.
Mayor of Redondo Beach, Bill Brand, expressed his support in a statement to press.
“I applaud the students of Redondo schools, and students all across America for exercising their First Amendment rights by walking out of their schools for 17 minutes today to stand-up to gun violence.”
Several students and community members in support of the right to bear arms were also present. One man with a large blue Trump flag draped over his shoulders paced back and forth in front of the students who lined the grass lawn outside of the school. Several students and community members engaged in discussions about solutions to gun control. Others in the crowd cheered as drivers on Pacific Coast Highway honked their horns as the drove by.
To see photos of today’s events click through the slideshow below. Images by Marie Targonski-O'Brien.
