Student walkouts continue, drawing hundreds to protest gun violence

Hundreds of students from Portland High School and Baxter Academy for Technology and Science flooded into City Hall Plaza on Thursday in a second day of student protests against gun violence.

“We are fighting for our own lives,” said Sophia Fagone, a senior at Portland High School. “Obviously politicians in Congress are more concerned about gun protection than the lives of my generation.”

Other students were staging walkouts at dozens of schools across the state, a day after a near-blizzard forced the postponement of events originally scheduled for Wednesday. Only a handful of Maine events were held because of the snowstorm.

The walkouts were held one month after the Feb. 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, which left 17 students and staff dead. The massacre has prompted a nationwide dialogue, driven by the activism of young people, on changing gun laws and making schools safer.

At Biddeford High School, dozens of students walked out the front doors and gathered around the school bell. A student read aloud the name and story of each victim at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, ringing the bell once between each name.

The Portland students, many carrying signs marked with “We stand with Parkland,” “#neveragain,” “Are we next?” and “Protect kids not guns,” overflowed the steps of City Hall. Some sat on the pavement and held hands, others chanted “Enough is enough!”

At the end of the rally, they held a minutes-long silence, broken only by the sound of sea gulls crying, before walking back to the two downtown high schools.

About 50 adult supporters, including Mayor Ethan Strimling and Police Chief Michael Sauschuck, stood along the street, facing the students. Some held signs, including “We are proud of you,” and “Somethin’ Happenin’ Here.”

The Wednesday events included a protest in snowy weather in Monument Square that attracted more than two dozen students, organized by students at King Middle School.

The nationwide #Enough National School Walkout to End Gun Violence was organized by a student-led branch of the Women’s March. News coverage has described Wednesday’s coordinated event as one of the largest student demonstrations since the Vietnam War.

Yarmouth and York high schools held their walkouts on Wednesday, since those schools did not close for the storm. Impromptu demonstrations were held by students in Portland and Freeport on Wednesday, but those students said they still intended to hold walkouts at their school on Thursday.

At protests across the nation, students left class at 10 a.m. local time for at least 17 minutes – one minute for each of the dead in Florida. At some schools, students didn’t go outside but lined the hallways, gathered in gyms and auditoriums or wore orange, the color used by the movement against gun violence, or maroon, the school color at Stoneman Douglas.

This story will be updated.

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