Chicago high school students walk out of class over gun violence [View all]

Source: ABC News

Students at a Chicago high school staged a classroom walkout Monday afternoon to protest gun violence just days after a shooting near their campus left two teenagers dead and two others wounded.

Students at Benito Juarez Community Academy in the Pilsen neighborhood on the city's southwest side, left their classrooms and gathered around a makeshift memorial where Friday's shooting occurred. The students called on city leaders to bolster security on their campus and crack down on gangs.

Many of the students released balloons into the air as they held a vigil for the victims.

"I want Benito Juarez to be safer because, honestly, I felt like this situation wouldn't have happened if it wasn't a lot of gang activity around the school," one of the student protest organizers, Kiya, told ABC Chicago station WLS-TV. "It's scary for people like me, who are not gang-affiliated, that have to go to school every day and then wonder, 'Dang, am I going to get shot?'"

Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/US/chicago-high-school-students-set-walk-class-gun/story?id=95546503