SEATTLE — Students and staff at Franklin High School in Seattle called to end gun violence with a rally and march Friday.
PHOTOS: Franklin HS students rally
The events came nearly a week after student Ryan Dela Cruz was shot and killed in Martha Washington Park. Police are still looking for the suspect.
To honor Dela Cruz, students walked out of school at 11 a.m. after a 10 a.m. assembly where former Seattle Mayor candidate Nikkita Oliver spoke.
"No 17-year-old should die two weeks before he was supposed to walk on the graduation stage. Especially by accident, that's unacceptable," Kayla Taylor, Class President at Franklin High School, said at the assembly.
Members of the groups March For Our Lives Seattle and We Won't Be Next Seattle participated, according to the Alliance for Gun Responsibility.
Video from Chopper 7 showed participants wearing orange ribbons and T-shirts,. Orange is the national antigun violence campaign color, according to a page for the event on Franklin's website.
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The group gathered at Rainier Avenue South and Martin Luther King Jr. Way and lined up on Rainier and the pedestrian bridge overhead.
According to the high school:
This Friday, as part of our campus day celebration, we plan stand at MLK Blvd/Rainier Ave S intersection and extend down Rainier Ave with messages of nonviolence. We will be wearing orange ribbons and t-shirts, the national anti-gun violence campaign color, holding signs, and requesting all who pass by to proactively work toward greater south end safety. We anticipate that we will be lining the streets near 11:00 am.
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