Demonstrations against gun violence took place in towns and cities across Connecticut on Saturday as part of rallies inspired by high school students in Parkland, Florida.
"I think the shooting in Parkland might have been the worst for me," Erica Lafferty told a crowd gathered at the state capitol in Hartford on Saturday.
Lafferty's mother, Dawn Hochsprung, was the principal at Sandy Hook Elementary School and was killed while running down the hallway towards the gunfire during the December 2012 mass shooting there.
"There were so many similarities. All the media coverage was just as intense. But most of all, the outcry from the public is just as intense," she said.
Lafferty said the inaction by lawmakers in Washington is the same as it was after Sandy Hook, but not everything has been similar.
"But then something happened. The Parkland students started to speak out," Lafferty said. "What's different about the students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School is that they are teenagers. Young people who have followed their voices and are not afraid to use them."
Lafferty said her mother's students at Sandy Hook were too young to speak up on their own.
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More than 10,000 people showed up for the march at the state capitol, according to Hartford police.
Marches also took place in Stamford and Guilford. Others were planned for Old Saybrook, East Haddam, West Hartford, Shelton, Roxbury, Kent and Enfield.
The events coincided with hundreds of marches across the nation, including the "March For Our Lives" rally in Washington, D.C., anchored by students from Parkland's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where 17 people were killed in a Valentine's Day shooting.
