Hundreds In Puget Sound Participate In National School Walkout

SEATTLE, WA - "The first name of someone lost is Alyssa Alhadeff, age 14," Garfield High School junior Sam Treat announced, his voice booming over hundreds of young people standing silently on the steps of the school.

Alhadeff died one month ago in the school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. Hers was the first of 17 names Treat and fellow student Alis Mace, 15, read Wednesday morning during a solemn walkout at Garfield.

Possibly thousands of students around Puget Sound, from Gig Harbor to Redmond, participated in the national school walkouts Wednesday. At Garfield, hundreds of students stood on the schools enormous granite staircase, holding signs demanding action on gun reform, demanding politicians stop listening to groups like the National Rifle Association

One popular sign read:

NOT
TODAY
SATAN
NRA.

Garfield's walkout was large, but there were dozens more happening across the state at 10 a.m. Wednesday.

In Gig Harbor, students marched from Gig Harbor High School to near Skansie Park where they held a voter registration drive. In Kirkland at International Community School, about half the grade 6 - 12 school participated in the walkout, posing for a group picture on the school's athletic fields. And in North Seattle, students marched from area high schools to the University of Washington's Red Square. Gov. Jay Inslee and Mayor Jenny Durkan spoke to those students.

Other local walkouts are focused solely on honoring the Parkland victims. At Hazen High School in Renton, students will light a lantern for each Parkland victim.

"These seventeen minutes are going to be dedicated to this students who are no longer with their classmates," co-organizer Kathleen Singleton said.

Watch the entire Garfield High School walkout here:

Treat said that Garfield's walkout was mainly to highlight the need for gun reforms, Treat told Patch.

"The actual measures we are demanding are: Ban of all assault rifle sales here on out; ban high capacity magazines and bump stocks; allocate government funding toward gun control research; and we want politicians to stop taking NRA money, and background checks should be expanded to cover ALL gun sales," he said.

But students chose to participate in the walkout for different reasons:

Max Warborg, 15, Garfield High School freshman (r): "I don't want to get shot at school! It's a shame and it's become way too normalized.

Eli Burton, 14, Garfield High School freshman (c): "After a lot of school shootings, everyone just moves on. We want to show people we haven't forgotten."

Maevis Elkins, Washington Middle School 7th grader (l): "I'm tired of young kids being told to shut up by the government. I'm tired of school shootings - I want something to happen."

Aereck Savelio, 16, Garfield junior (r): "The victims [in Parkland] were so young. It's crazy that they didn't even get a chance to live their life. There has to be a way to prevent this."

Jack Cloud, 16, Garfield sophomore (c): "I never want to see a parent exerpience that loss of a child. No one deserves to go through that.

Fia Kamoto, 16, Garfield sophomore (l): "So many lives were taken. It's crazy how young they were."

The 17th name Treat announced Wednesday was Peter Wang, 15. Wang was a member of his high school ROTC program. He died while holding a door open so other students could escape.

After Wang's minute of silence ended, Treat left his classmates with a request.

"We want to make this more than just a walk out," he said. "We want to make this an opportunity for change to occur."

He directed them to nearby tables to sign up to vote or to contact elected officials.

Sara Javkhlan, 15, a Garfield sophomore (r), Keya A., 15, a Garfield sophomore (c), and Zeb Becker, 16, a Garfield sophomore, manned a table with contact information for local and federal elected officials. Keya A. estimated that about 75 percent of the students at the walkout took down the politicians' information.

Nearby, Carlin MacCorkle, 17, a senior, was helping students register to vote.

"We ran out of forms," she reported.

The walkouts are a preview of nationwide marches planned for March 24. For that event, demonstrators will gather at Cal Anderson Park in Seattle at 10 a.m. and march to the Seattle Center.

Also on Wednesday, Inslee will host a town hall on gun reform at Seattle University. The event will be broadcast beginning at 7 p.m. on KIRO 7.

Nearly 100 local schools participated in the walkouts Wednesday morning. You can find the full list of schools here.

Caption: Garfield High School and Washington Middle School students joined together Wednesday morning remember the victims of the Parkland shooting, and to call for gun reform.

Photos by Neal McNamara