Kent State, they were just kids, college kids, protesting our illegal presence in Cambodia. They were unarmed and helpless. The National Guard, they were just kids, tired kids, but someone gave the order for them to use deadly force against the other kids and to this day, no one has been held responsible. Here's a view from someone who was there:
"Kent State, May 4, 1970: America Kills Its Children
Twenty-five years ago this month, students came out on the Kent State campus and scores of others to protest the bombing of Cambodia-- a decision of President Nixon's that appeared to expand the Vietnam War. Some rocks were thrown, some windows were broken, and an attempt was made to burn the ROTC building. Governor James Rhodes sent in the National Guard.
The units that responded were ill-trained and came right from riot duty elsewhere; they hadn't had much sleep. The first day, there was some brutality; the Guard bayonetted two men, one a disabled veteran, who had cursed or yelled at them from cars. The following day, May 4th, the Guard, commanded with an amazing lack of military judgment, marched down a hill, to a field in the middle of angry demonstrators, then back up again. Seconds before they would have passed around the corner of a large building, and out of sight of the crowd, many of the Guardsmen wheeled and fired directly into the students, hitting thirteen, killing four of them, pulling the trigger over and over, for thirteen seconds. (Count out loud--one Mississippi, two Mississippi, to see how long this is.) Guardsmen--none of whom were later punished, civilly, administratively, or criminally--admitted firing at specific unarmed targets; one man shot a demonstrator who was giving him the finger. The closest student shot was fully sixty feet away; all but one were more than 100 feet away; all but two were more than 200 feet away. One of the dead was 255 feet away; the rest were 300 to 400 feet away. The most distant student shot was more than 700 feet from the Guardsmen.
Some rocks had been thrown, and some tear gas canisters fired by the Guard had been hurled back, but (though some of the Guardsmen certainly must know the truth) no-one has ever been able to establish why the Guard fired when they were seconds away from safety around the corner of the building. None had been injured worse than a minor bruise, no demonstrators were armed, there was simply nothing threatening them that justified an armed and murderous response. In addition to the demonstrators, none of whom was closer than sixty feet, the campus was full of onlookers and students on their way to class; two of the four dead fell in this category. Most Guardsmen later testified that they turned and fired because everyone else was. There was an attempt to blame a mysterious sniper, of whom no trace was ever found; there was no evidence, on the ground, on still photographs or a film, of a shot fired by anyone but the Guardsmen. One officer is seen in many of the photographs, out in front, pointing a pistol; one possibility is that he fired first, causing the others, ahead of him, to turn and fire. Or (as some witnesses testified) he or another officer may have given an order to fire. It is indisputable that the Guardsmen were not in any immediate physical danger when they fired; the crowd was not pursuing them; they were seconds away from being out of sight of the demonstration.
There was also an undercover FBI informant, Terry Norman, carrying a gun on the field that day. Though he later turned his gun into the police, who announced it had not been fired, later ballistic tests by the FBI showed that it had been fired since it was last cleaned-- but by then it was too late to determine whether it had been fired before or on May 4th.
It would be too charitable to say that the investigation was botched; there was no investigation. Even the New York City police, who are themselves prone to brutality and corruption, do a better job. Every time an officer discharges his weapon, it is taken from him, and there is an investigation. Here--to the fatal detriment of the federal criminal trial which followed--it was never conclusively established which Guardsmen had fired, or which of them had shot the wounded and the dead. Since all were wearing gas masks, it is impossible to identify them in pictures (many had also removed or covered their name tags, a classic ploy of law enforcement officers about to commit brutality in the '60's and '70's), and though many confessed to having fired their weapons, none admitted to being in the first row and therefore, among the first to fire. The ballistic evidence could have helped here, but none was taken.
One rumor has it that the Guardsmen were told the same night that they would never be prosecuted by the state of Ohio. And they never were. The Nixon administration stalled for years, announcing "investigations" that led nowhere; White House tapes subsequently released show that Nixon thought demonstrators were bums, asked the Secret Service to go beat them up, and apparently felt that the Kent State victims had it coming. As did most of the country; William Gordon calls the killings "the most popular murders ever committed in the United States."
The history of the next few years is very sad. A federal prosecution was finally brought, but the presiding judge is said to have signalled his preference for the defendants, guiding their attorney's conduct of the case to help them avoid legal errors. He dismissed all charges at the close of the prosecution's case, avoiding the need for a defense and taking the case away from the jury. Among his reasons: a failure to prove specific intent to deprive the victims of their civil rights; due to the lack of any investigation, it was almost impossible at this late date to show which Guardsmen shot which victim.
In the New York City police force, which is far from perfect, officers who have killed or injured someone under questionable circumstances are often dismissed from the force even though there is not enough evidence for a criminal conviction; the standard of proof is not the same for an administrative action as for a criminal case. You don't want an unstable, sadistic person on the force, even though there may not be enough evidence for a criminal conviction. But the Guardsmen--even the one who confessed to shooting an unarmed demonstrator giving him the finger--were not deemed unfit to serve the State, even though they had fired indiscriminately into a crowd containing many passsersby and students on their way to classes.
Here are the names of those who died at Kent State, so that they may not be forgotten:"
ALISON KRAUSE
JEFFREY MILLER
SANDRA SCHEUER
WILLIAM SCHROEDER |
