About 25 Timberline PK-8 School students left their East Mountain View Avenue school on Friday morning and walked to downtown Longmont's Civic Center to urge adoption of gun-safety measures and to commemorate the 19th anniversary of the Columbine High School shooting massacre.

Such demonstrations occurred across the nation, and Jestiny Morado, 13, said she and her fellow Timberline seventh-graders held their own march after "we heard it on the news."

Morado said her mother, Felicia Morado, encouraged her to participate in Friday's demonstration because her mother knew two or three of the people who died in the Columbine shooting in which 12 students and a teacher were killed.

Angel De La Rocha, 12, said the occasion offered him and other Timberline students a chance to show their concerns about the need to crack down "on gun violence."

After hearing the students were on their way, Mayor Brian Bagley and Councilwoman Polly Christensen — who'd just concluded a Friday morning City Council work session — greeted the students outside Longmont's Safety and Justice Center and invited them into the Civic Center's council chambers.

There, they were joined by Public Safety Chief Mike Butler, with Timberline school resource officer Chris Borchowiec looking on from the back of the room. Borchowiec, a Longmont police officer, went to the Civic Center earlier to alert officials that the students were on their way.

"Congratulations on exercising you right to speak up," Bagley told the youth before asking them: "What would you like to see your government do?"

Students' answers included calls for more and stricter background checks of people seeking to purchase firearms as well as setting higher age limits for buying guns.

Bagley asked them if they're personally scared when they hear about new school shooting incidents.

"Yeah!" most of the students immediately replied in unison.

Butler told the Timberline students that while he appreciated their concerns about the availability of guns, there are other mental and emotional factors that can lead to some students taking up arms to attack their classmates, teachers and school staffs.

He encouraged the students to try to befriend any classmate who appears to be isolated and may be struggling with depression because of not having friends, and to tell those classmates that "we do care about you."

In schools, as well as elsewhere in the community, people "are struggling" with such personal issues, Butler said, and they need to know that other people care about them.

If more students did that in their schools, that would go a great way toward increasing school safety, he said.

Christensen told the students of her concerns about the proliferation of firearms in the nation.

"This country has enough guns for every man, woman and baby to have eight guns," the councilwoman said.

Christensen said she's been getting letters suggesting that the council sponsor a community forum discussion of gun issues.

Bagley and Butler also urged the students to notify school officials or police whenever those students hear or observe a fellow student saying or doing something that could lead to a dangerous or deadly incident.

"When you see something, tell somebody," Bagley said.

"If you see something, let us know," Butler said.

After their meeting with Bagley, Butler and Christensen inside the Civic Center, the Timberline students walked across Third Avenue to the Safety and Justice Center, waiting briefly for a St. Vrain Valley School District bus that district officials sent to take them back to Timberline rather than them having to walk back to their school.

John Fryar: 303-684-5211, jfryar@times-call.com or twitter.com/jfryartc