Two Year Anniversary of Pulse Nightclub Massacre Ignites Die-In Protest

In downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday, June 12, over one hundred people gathered in front of city hall for a ‘Die-In’ protest commemorating the second anniversary of the Pulse Nightclub Massacre.

Santa Monica College students, Oona Wuolijoki, Celine Merino, Amanda Southworth, and Olivia Spaulding (founder of March for Our Lives LA), organized this event in remembrance of the Pulse Nightclub Massacre victims and to keep the conversation going about gun reform. Other organizations such as Women's March and March for Our Live assisted with the protest.

"In this world, politicians choose campaign funding from the NRA over the lives of us, their constituents - NRA, you messed with the wrong generation, you hear me," Wuolijoki said to the cheering crowd. "We will continue to fight until no more parents will dip their kids off at school, only to pick them up in body bags, that is an unacceptable reality, and we will create a new one." 

Amidst the crowd was a wooden memorial decorated with flowers, holding a picture of each of the Pulse Nightclub Massacre victims. "Every 15 minutes, a person in the US loses their life to gun violence. By the time this rally is finished, seven people will be dead," said event speaker Cameron Price, a recent high school graduate from the Gays Against Guns Organization.

Speakers took the microphone and told their own personal stories of how they’ve been affected by gun violence in their life to the crowd, such as parents of a Parkland Shooting victim, Nicholas Dworet. "If it happened in Parkland to us, it could happen anytime, anywhere, [to] anyone," said the boy's father, Mitch Dworet. As emotional stories were told, the protest attendees, some holding signs, listened with intent silence, only breaking it to clap in support.

Actress Alyssa Milano, the woman who popularized the #MeToo movement, was one of the speakers. "Today, we honor all the victims of gun violence, not by our thoughts and prayers, but by action," said Milano.

As the clock struck noon, all attendees proceeded to lay down on the floor, just feet away from the steps of city hall. They remained there until 12:12, for approximately 700 seconds, which represented the number of lives that have been lost due to mass shootings since the Pulse Nightclub Massacre. As people stood up, hugs were shared among the crowd before they dispersed from downtown Los Angeles.

The event concluded with no incidents of injury or violence.