Walkout, Die-In Staged At Falls Church Schools In Protest Of Shootings

FALLS CHURCH, VA — Hundreds of students walked out of Meridian High School and Mary Henderson Middle School in Falls Church on Thursday in protest of mass shootings killing their fellow students at schools across the country.

The walkout occurred two days after 19 students and two adults were shot and killed at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. The 18-year-old gunman in the Texas mass shooting was killed by law enforcement officers, police said.

The youth activist group Students Demand Action called for students across the country to walk out of their classrooms at noon ET on Thursday.

"When I heard the news about this most recent shooting in Texas, the only thing I could think about is what their families are going through," said 16-year-old Elijah Pelton, who organized the student walkout at Meridian High School, according to an ABC7 report. "I can't just standby and watch that happen. I felt encouraged to do something about it."

Del. Marcus Simon, who represents Falls Church in the House of Delegates, spoke at the student walkout at Meridian High School's football field.

Simon said he was impressed with students who organized the midday walkout "to express their frustration with our lack of action to prevent gun violence."

"I was able to provide words of encouragement to them this afternoon — we need to listen to these kids, they get it," Simon said.

Victoria Virasingh, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for Virginia's 8th congressional district, told the students about growing up in Arlington when the mass shooting at Virginia Tech occurred in 2007.

"I will never forget the fear that grew inside of me, realizing that my lived reality as a student, as a young person living in America had changed completely," Virasingh said. "Your lived reality is my lived reality. It's a lived reality that is filled with fear and filled with the ability to know that any day this could happen to any single one of us. And that is not OK."

The students at Falls Church's secondary schools ended Thursday's protest by staging a die-in on the football field.

"It is such a mix of emotions," Peter Noonan, superintendent of Falls Church City Public Schools, told ABC7. "I think my first emotion is how proud I am of their activism and the idea of showing their voice and sharing their power, but also at the same time, the idea of having to do this because of what happened in Texas and elsewhere in the country makes me really sad."

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