And this is why students, no matter the issue, should not be allowed to leave school during the school day:
An 11-year-old boy in El Paso died after getting hit by a pickup truck while his school held a walkout to protest gun violence https://t.co/QamS6tYoOQ
— The New York Times (@nytimes) April 22, 2018
From the New York Times:
An 11-year-old boy in El Paso died on Friday after getting hit by a pickup truck while his school held a walkout to protest gun violence.
“Obviously everybody’s in a state of shock,” Xavier De La Torre, the superintendent of the Ysleta Independent School District, said at a news conference on Friday.
The boy, Jonathan Benko, and a group of about 12 to 15 other students from Parkland Middle School in El Paso decided not to participate in the walkout, and instead left the campus to visit a park on the other side of Loop 375, a busy highway that surrounds parts of the city, officials said.
Jonathan, a sixth grader and the last one to try to cross, was struck by a Ford F-150 pickup truck, Officer Darrel Petry, a spokesman for the El Paso Police Department, said on Saturday. He was transported to the University Medical Center of El Paso, where he died.
The rest here.
The students, according to reports, were actually protesting but eft campus during the walkout and nobody seemed to notice:
.@YsletaISD Superintendent @DeXavierluke says 6th-grader killed in pedestrian crash was part of a group of students that breached the school's perimeter leaving campus during Parkland Middle School's planned #walkout event Friday morning. pic.twitter.com/9KJVQzXyu1
— CBS4Local (@CBS4Local) April 20, 2018
Parents were alerted of the boy’s death by voicemail:
"It is with great sadness and heavy hearts that we inform you of the death of a Parkland Middle School student," officials from YISD told parents in a voicemail. https://t.co/0TQ1PHoyDr
— El Paso Times (@elpasotimes) April 20, 2018
A fund has been set up to raise money for Jonathan’s family:
Here is how you can donate to the family of Parkland Middle School student Jonathan Benko. https://t.co/Zdljbx78ZI
— El Paso Times (@elpasotimes) April 21, 2018
This never should have happened and the district knows it:
The Ysleta family extends our deepest condolences to the Benko family and Parkland community. You are in our thoughts, hearts, and prayers. #THEDISTRICT #THEPARK pic.twitter.com/qapPIx9Wzg
— Ysleta ISD (@YsletaISD) April 21, 2018
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