High school students hold sit-in protest

SANDY SPRINGS, Ga. - Students staged a sit-in inside a Fulton County high school Friday. Students said it all started when school officials stopped a demonstration over lives lost to gun violence. Video shows students sitting down in the hallway and refusing to move. But school officials are telling a different story.

Some 200 students said they staged a peaceful sit-in in the hallways at North Springs Charter High School in Roswell late Friday morning. Students told FOX 5 News that the senior class organized a "black-out" to call attention to the recent police shootings. They said one student brought Black Lives Matter t-shirts to pass out which a school administrator confiscated, calling the movement a "terrorist organization."

Kyle Curtis said he got one of those shirts and like many others students, an administrator confiscated it.

“I had to get this from my friend. I threw my shirt in the trash because I was so excited to get a Black Lives Matter shirt and when she took it, I was just in my tank top. I can't walk around just in a tank top, so I got a shirt from my friend. I got a lot of friends. We had gym, so they gave me this shirt to put on,” said Curtis.

This prompted the sit-in which we are told lasted about 45 minutes. At one point, SKYFOX 5 flew over the protest which by then had moved to the school’s football field.

Meanwhile, school officials are telling a different story. The school principal sent out this email to parents alerting them of what happened. It reads in part “Late this morning, a group of students held a peaceful protest in our school hallways in response to a rumor that a student, who was wearing a Black Lives Matter t-shirt had been asked to remove it by an administrator. This was not true. We support our students’ freedom of expression as long as it does not create a school disruption.”

"It just makes me sad that they're trying to say that it didn't happen. We're just trying to prove we can come together and black lives really do matter," said student Emma Barhoumi.

"Certain students were allegedly wearing the Black Lives Matter t-shirts, they were pulled, and they were asked to take off their shirt. And during the protest you can hear some students saying 'May I please get my shirt back,'" said student Mileana Fields.

School officials said they don’t have any idea about a box of t-shirts that were reportedly confiscated. This was a peaceful protest and no students will be disciplined. As for the students, they said this peaceful protest will continue throughout Friday night's football game.