New Smyrna Beach High students honor Parkland victims, hold silent protest
Students at New Smyrna Beach High School honored the Parkland victims and stepped up to send a message about gun violence in Volusia County.
The students stood in solidarity with those in Parkland, holding signs with names of those lost in school shootings since 2015.
The tragedy at Margory Stoneman Douglas takes on a personal meaning for those at the school after one of their own died from a gunshot wound days before the Parkland massacre.
“To like feel how one student impacted us compared to seventeen there. It just had a huge effect on the community as a whole,” Chelsea Lewis said.
Authorities said freshman Ernesto Sierra Plummer's death is still under investigation but it appears his gunshot wound was self-inflicted.
Then, days after the mass shooting, another reminder when the Marjory Stoneman Douglas students were missing from a student government conference.
"They were supposed to be in the bleachers right next to us and sort of having that gap of a school that's not there because it happened days after the shooting,” Lewis said.
Members of the community joined the students on Wednesday and called for change.
"Students shouldn't be scared to go to school. School's a place where we've been told all our lives that we could be safe and the fact now that it's in our minds that it might not be safe,” Emily Musgrove, a student, said.
The ceremony including eighteen moments of silence: Seventeen for the Parkland victims and one for Ernesto.