Local students walk out in protest of gun violence and police response to Texas shootings
More than 500 Olympia high school and middle school students walked out Wednesday morning to protest gun violence after 19 elementary-age children and two teachers were shot and killed last week in Uvalde, Texas.
Some of those students then marched to the Washington state Capitol, while others stayed on campus at Olympia High School, according to Susan Gifford, communications and community relations director for the Olympia School District.
The walkout was organized by members of the Olympia High School Feminism Club.
Alayna Winstead-Coby, president of the Feminism Club, told McClatchy that the group began planning the event last Wednesday, the day after the mass shooting took place. She said the group felt “pure outrage” after the shooting, and they wanted to show the school that students were brave enough to skip school over the issue.
“These sort of walkouts are the only type of thing that makes voices heard,” she said.
Washington State Patrol estimated that about 100 students gathered for a rally on the north steps of the Legislative Building, although many students were coming and going, making it difficult for WSP to get a reliable count, they told McClatchy.
Students from mostly Washington Middle School and OHS attended the event, although some students were there from other schools, including North Thurston High School and other middle schools, according to Winstead-Coby.
Hannah Martin, a member of the Feminism Club, read an open letter to officials.
“If there’s a shooter, hide in the corner, jump out those windows, don’t be the hero, save yourself,” she read. “Because if we won’t, who will? You surely won’t.
“Instead, you stand outside an elementary school for an hour because it’s not safe, but still, you expect us to feel safe when you, a trained professional, refused to go in yourself,” she continued.
Organizers then read the names of the 19 students and two teachers who perished in the Uvalde mass shooting before taking a moment of silence.
Middle schoolers left Washington Middle School at 10:43 a.m. to meet high schoolers at OHS, who were scheduled to leave at 11 a.m. Some students drove but most walked to the state Capitol while carrying signs and chanting. OHS is about 2.2 miles away from the Capitol, while WMS is about 2.6 miles, according to Google maps.
The OHS attendance office told McClatchy that many parents called in the morning to excuse their student’s absences. Some students who walked to the Capitol returned to class after the rally.
Last month, the same organizers staged a walkout in protest of the preliminary ruling that was leaked overturning Roe v. Wade abortion decision. Hundreds of students also attended that rally at Heritage Park after leaving their respective schools.
This story was originally published June 1, 2022 at 2:10 PM.
