Students on Friday walked out of their schools on National Gun Violence Awareness Day. Many of them wore orange in solidarity for victims of gun violence.
“The Buffalo shooting was crazy. I don’t want that. I don’t know why is that being tolerated,” one student said. “That all has to come to an end — we need to, we need to. It’s a must. It has to come to an end.”
“It should make it harder for people to own guns and to have guns, so stop the gun violence,” Kiana Dwarka, a student at Cooke School, said.
On top of the mass shootings, hundreds of people here in the city have been shot this year.
“In this district, we saw a young girl shot and killed in a Burger King in East Harlem, two police officers murdered in Harlem, an 11-month-old baby shot in the face in the Bronx,” Rep. Adriano Espaillat said. “So this community is fed up and responding.”
In Harlem, elected officials held a news conference about new gun control measures.
Congressional representative Adriano Espaillat called on the U.S. Senate to support a gun control package that is moving through the House of Representatives.
“I am confident that the crisis has reached a level where there’s no alternative,” Espaillat said. “I don’t think it goes far enough, actually. But they must pass it in the Senate.”
Meanwhile, in Brooklyn, 7th grade students from Launch Expeditionary Learning Charter School led a walkout.
“We know from what we witness with our own eyes, gun violence is an epidemic in our country,” said one student.
“We should be able to walk the streets without having the fear of being shot or losing someone to gun violence,” another student said.
The city Department of Education did not respond to questions from NY1 about the number of schools whose students walked out in protest.