Thousands of Seattle students walk out of school to protest gun violence

Shortly after classes started Monday morning, students walked out from schools all around Seattle and met at a rally in front of City Hall. The march came less than a week after a 14-year-old allegedly shot and killed a student at Ingraham High School in North Seattle.

Thousands of students from all over town packed into Seattle City Hall on Monday. Most had their backpacks still on after walking out of class. Homemade signs contained phrases like, "AM I NEXT?" and "END GUN VIOLENCE."

The rally was organized days after a teenager at Ingraham High School allegedly shot and killed another student inside the school on Nov. 8. Another teen is being held for allegedly assisting in the crime.

“What we went through at Ingraham was not OK,” said Nyaboth Thabior, a junior at Ingraham. Thabior was with a group of students from Ingraham at the front of the march outside of City Hall, many wearing orange ribbons for gun violence awareness.

Thabior said she wants city leaders to, “acknowledge us and listen because they clearly aren’t.” The response from the school president and superintendent is “not enough,” she said, “that’s why we’re out here.”

Monday’s rally was planned by the Seattle Student Union, which sent out a list of demands in a news release, aimed at school officials and lawmakers . They include adding mental health counselors to every school that are representative of the diverse backgrounds of students, updating safe storage laws, and banning assault rifles.

Dozens of students shared that they shouldn’t have to be afraid for their lives while at school.

“For so many people that have hard home lives, school is a safe haven,” said Nina Soleil, a sophomore at West Seattle High School. “And that is being destroyed by guns.”

Soleil carried a sign that read, "THE GOVERNMENT CARES MORE ABOUT THE NRA THAN OUR LIVES.”

Going to school and staying focused on homework since last week's shooting at Ingraham has been difficult, many students said.

“I was really shaken up and it just threw off the rest of the week, too,” said Matilda Barber, a junior at Ballard High School.

“Even after they announced that we were safe and everything, I could not do my schoolwork properly," Barber said.

After sharing personal stories at City Hall plaza, the crowd marched through downtown Seattle to Westlake Park and back.

Many young students in the crowd were 14-year-old freshmen who said Monday’s rally was their first protest or political action.

“One of my huge fears has been school shootings and shootings in general, especially as a Black person," said Nico Brannock, a freshman at Nova High School. "So knowing that things are really happening in the Seattle School District now is really stressful."

Brannock said there are a lot of changes she’d like to see, including better security at schools and fewer guns in peoples’ homes. Her top priority, she said, is to spread awareness.

“People accepting that this is an issue that needs to be fixed,” Brannock said.