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It has been a week plagued with gun violence in the Central District near Garfield High School.

Last Wednesday, a 17-year-old girl was hit by gunfire while waiting at a bus stop in front of the school. Later that same night, a woman was shot to death just a couple blocks away.

Parents are fed up.

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“We’re in kind of a 911 situation where our kids’ lives are in danger every day, sending them to school in the line of fire,” parent Melanie Skinner said.

Parents organize rally on stopping gun violence

Skinner and her close friend, Karen Emmerman Mazner, also a parent, decided they had to do something. So, they organized a rally outside their children’s school. They didn’t know what to expect, or how many people would show up.

“I just thought, I have to do something, and if it’s only the two of us or only three of us, I don’t care. I just have to do something because I can’t sit at home feeling sick and powerless anymore,” Emmerman Mazner said.

The rally started around 2 in the afternoon, just as Garfield students were getting out of school early. The group was small, only about 30 people, most holding signs and chanting.

The rallygoers want school officials, community leaders and especially police to do more.

They realize the Seattle Police Department is short-staffed but they feel the ongoing gun violence here needs to be a priority.

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“It would be great to see them patrolling the area during school hours all the time. That would be helpful,” Skinner said.

Seattle police said they have allocated additional resources to focus on the area and hopefully curb gun violence in the neighborhood.

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