Page 8
March 4, 2015
Ockley Green students Kenya Vasquez (left) and Marissa Pasaye-Elias, discuss their understanding
of the George Zimmerman trial and the process of re-enacting the case with their Mock Trial team.
All Lives
Matter
continued
from page 3
authority figures, and how racism
increases the dangers of walking
around at night, no matter how well-
intentioned.
The students share stories of
Students of the Ockley Green Middle School Mock Trial Team
designed their own hoodies to honor the life and death of Trayvon
Martin. Pictured are (from left) Laceigh Jones, Kaiya Laguardia
and Toni Duan.
other high-profile killings, like
Emmett Till, a black teenage boy
who was violently murdered in Mis-
sissippi in 1955 for allegedly whis-
tling at a white woman. They talk
about Martin Luther King Jr., the
great civil rights activist assassi-
nated in broad daylight in the 1960s;
the recent high-profile death of black
teen Mike Brown, killed by a
Ferguson, Missouri police officer;
the police attack on Rodney King
two decades ago; to Eric Garner’s
death, the African-American whose
last words were “I can’t breathe” as
a police officer strangled him on
camera.
White children joined in, describ-
ing their fears for their black and
Latino peers, worrying about the
prejudices and injustices facing their
community.
The outreach last week by the
trial team came on the heels of per-
forming a re-enactment of the
Zimmerman trial earlier in the school
year. Oregon Appeals Court Judge
Darleen Ortega and Multnomah
County defense attorney Audra
Kaleta guided the students through
the process, along with attorney
Rakeem Washington, son of the
late Charles Washington, publisher
of the Portland Observer.
In the mock trial, the Okley Green
students confidently found
Zimmerman guilty, but their judg-
ment on the case did not give them
lasting satisfaction. The students
found it difficult to return back to a
world in which Zimmerman walked
free. This spurred the desire to host
the assembly and brainstorm with
other students about ending racial
profiling.
Students from other Portland area
schools were invited to attend the
assembly and join small student-led
workshops to tackle the issues.
Each group almost universally re-
quested that racial profiling be
curbed, and called out authority fig-
ures, especially police, to take more
caution when confronting people
of color, especially asking that guns
not be drawn so quickly.
The students of the Mock Trial
team now vow to reconvene and
plan another assembly to follow up
on the goals they composed. They
hope the next gathering will occur in
six weeks, symbolically matching
the time it took after Martin’s death
to charge Zimmerman with murder.