Students at Columbine High School in Colorado joined hundreds of other schools in walking out of their classrooms to protest gun violence on Wednesday, exactly one month after 17 people were killed in a school shooting in Parkland, Florida.
Watch the video above to see the Columbine students walk out of classes.
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The students exited the school where almost 20 years ago two shooters killed 13 students. Some parents of the victims of the 1999 shooting planned to join students today.
About two blocks from Heritage High School, Tom Mauser, who lost his son Daniel in the shooting, planned to meet with students along with other parents of Columbine victims, KDVR reports.
Students from hundreds of other schools across the country and around the world joined in on the walkout, which was slated to last 17 minutes in honor of each of the 17 slain on Valentine’s Day at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
Over 3,100 walkout events are registered, according to ENOUGH National School Walkout organizers. The walkouts are across the nation, in states like Maine, Maryland, North Dakota, North Carolina, Washington, Hawaii and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Groups from around the world have also signed up, including in Australia, Israel, Switzerland, Germany and Mexico.
“Remember why we are walking out,” Stoneman Douglas survivor Lauren Hogg wrote on Twitter today. “We are walking out for my friends that passed, all children that have been taken because of gun violence. We are walking out for the empty desks in my classes, and the unsaid goodbyes. This epidemic of School shootings must stop.”
Hundreds of students walked out of school in the Washington, D.C. area Wednesday and headed for the White House, where they chanted for gun reform. When the clock struck 10 o’clock, the students silently sat down with their backs to the White House.
In Plainfield, Illinois, where some students plan to walk out, doing so will come with a guideline.
Students who want to participate in the walkout also must attend an after-school discussion with state legislators to discuss issues that relate to school violence, like the political process, school safety, gun control and what influences politicians, Plainfield School District Superintendent Dr. Lane Abrell told ABC News.
Abrell said the walkout “in my opinion … doesn’t really solve the issue,” and the meeting with local legislators is a way for students who genuinely are passionate about the cause to learn how school violence issues can be solved.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said schools can punish students for missing class for walkouts, but the punishment should only be because students are missing school — it cannot be a harsher punishment because the students participated in a protest.
Viacom cable networks “went dark” for 17 minutes Wednesday in support of the walkout and to honor the victims of the February shooting.
In a blog posted on Viacom’s website, the network said the act is part of an initiative to support the young people who are raising their voices to demand action in light of the attack last month.
The brief blackout affected all of Viacom’s cable channels, including MTV, Nickelodeon, BET, CMT, Comedy Central, TV Land and Paramount Network, among others.
