The Latest: Florida students walk out in show of solidarity

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Nikolas Cruz appears in court for a status hearing before Broward Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Monday, Feb. 19, 2018. Cruz is charged with killing 17 people and wounding many others in Wednesday's attack at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, which he once attended. (Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP, Pool)

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PARKLAND, Fla. (AP) — The Latest on the deadly Florida high school shooting (all times local):

12:20 p.m.

Students from several Florida high schools have taken to the streets in a show of solidarity with students from a nearby school where 17 students were gunned down in their classrooms on Valentine’s Day.

Video footage taken from television news helicopter crews showed several dozen students who walked out of West Boca Raton High School on Tuesday morning, apparently bound for Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in nearby Parkland. Many of the students were wearing their backpacks. The distance between the schools is about 11 miles (17 kilometers).

Several dozen more students gathered outside Fort Lauderdale High School, holding signs with messages that included “our blood is on your hands.”

On Monday, students at American Heritage High School held a similar protest.

Former Stoneman student, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, is charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder.

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Midnight

A hundred Stoneman Douglas High School students are busing hundreds of miles across Florida to its capital to urge lawmakers to act to prevent a repeat of the massacre that killed 17 students and faculty last week.

After arriving late Tuesday, they plan to hold a rally Wednesday in hopes that it will put pressure on the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature to consider a sweeping package of gun-control laws. Shortly after the shooting, several legislative leaders were taken on a tour of the school to see the damage firsthand and appeared shaken afterward.

Chris Grady is a 19-year-old senior on the trip. He said he hopes the trip will lead to some “commonsense laws like rigorous background checks.”