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Dozens gather for unity walk honoring Garfield High School shooting victim

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Slideshow Icon1 of 10Pastor James E. Sears III speaks to a crowd at Garfield High School on Thursday, June 13, 2024, during a unity walk in honor of Amarr Murphy Paine, a 17-year-old Garfield high school student that was shot and killed at school, in Seattle.
Credit: KUOW Photo/Megan Farmer

Dozens of people gathered to mourn a Garfield High School student killed last week, and called for community-wide change during a unity walk through Seattle's Central District on Thursday.

The walk came a week after 17-year-old Amarr Murphy-Paine was shot and killed in the school parking lot while attempting to break up a fight.

No arrests have been made in connection with the case.

RELATED: I gave the Garfield High School victim CPR. Now I’m pulling my son from school

On the front steps of the school, James Sears III, Murphy-Paine's pastor at Grace Temple Church, remembered him as an honorable young man, gone too soon.

"What happened last Thursday was tumultuous, tragic, and traumatic," he said. "Amarr lost his life to senseless gun violence."

Sears urged the community to take proactive steps to prevent such violence from happening again.

RELATED: Following 3 Seattle area teens' shooting deaths, community leaders call for structural gun violence solutions

"The continual onslaught of gun violence has tried to destroy a community, tried to destroy a city, and a generation," he said. "But let me tell you something: There is no time like the present. The difference has to be made now."

"Somebody say, 'now,'" he said.

"Now!" the crowd replied.

Garfield students and families have been expressing concerns with safety and security at the school for months. The parent-teacher-student association has asked Seattle Public Schools to station additional security guards at the school, and to bring back school resource officers, among other proposed solutions.

RELATED: Should cops return to Seattle high schools? Interim Chief Rahr signals she wants to talk about it

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