The Kent State shootings (also known as the Kent State massacre or May 4 massacre) were the killing of four and wounding of nine unarmed college students by the Ohio National Guard on the Kent State University campus. The shootings took place on May 4, 1970, during a rally opposing the expanding involvement of the Vietnam War into Cambodia by United States military forces as well as protesting the National Guard presence on campus and the draft. Twenty-eight National Guard soldiers fired about 67 rounds over 13 seconds, killing four students and wounding nine others, one of whom suffered permanent paralysis. Students Allison Krause, 19, Jeffrey Miller, 20, and Sandra Scheuer, 20, died on the scene, while William Schroeder, 19, was pronounced dead at Robinson Memorial Hospital in nearby Ravenna shortly afterward.
Krause and Miller were among the more than 300 students who
gathered to protest the expansion of the Cambodian campaign, which President
Richard Nixon had announced in an April 30 television address. Scheuer and
Schroeder were in the crowd of several hundred others who had been observing
the proceedings more than 300 feet (91 m) from the firing line; like most
observers, they watched the protest during a break between their classes.
The shootings triggered immediate and massive outrage on
campuses around the country. It increased participation in the student strike
that began on May 1. Ultimately, more than 4 million students participated in
organized walk-outs at hundreds of universities, colleges, and high schools.
The shootings and the strike affected public opinion at an already socially
contentious time over the role of the United States in the Vietnam War.
Eight of the shooters were charged with depriving the
students of their civil rights, but were acquitted in a bench trial. The trial
judge stated, "It is vital that
state and National Guard officials not regard this decision as authorizing or
approving the use of force against demonstrators, whatever the occasion of the
issue involved. Such use of force is, and was, deplorable."
Background
President John F. Kennedy increased U.S. involvement in the
Vietnam War, sending 16,000 advisors in 1963, up from the 900 that President
Dwight D. Eisenhower sent. Lyndon B. Johnson significantly escalated
involvement, raising the number of American troops in Vietnam to 100,000 in
1965, and eventually to more than 500,000 combat troops in 1968 with no
tangible results and with increasing opposition and protests at home. When
Richard M. Nixon was elected in 1968, he promised to end the conflict, claiming
he had a secret plan. The Mỹ Lai massacre by American troops of between 347 and
504 Vietnamese villagers, exposed in November 1969, heightened opposition to
the war.
On April 29, 1970, U.S. and South Vietnamese forces invaded
eastern Cambodia in what they claimed was an attempt to defeat the North
Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops based there. The expansion of the war into
Cambodia angered those who believed it only exacerbated the conflict and
violated a neutral nation's sovereignty. Across the U.S., campuses erupted in
protests in what Time called "a
nation-wide student strike", setting the stage for the events of early
May 1970.
In April 1970 Nixon told Congress that he would end
undergraduate student draft deferments by Executive Order if authorized by
Congress to do so. This request was approved by the Senate Armed Services
Committee on April 23. After the draft reforms students could only postpone
their service until the end of the semester. This is still the law today.
Kent State protest
activity, 1966–1970
During the 1966 Homecoming Parade, protesters walked dressed
in military paraphernalia with gas masks.
In the fall of 1968, the Students for a Democratic Society
(SDS) and Black United Students staged a sit-in to protest against police
recruiters on campus. Two hundred fifty black students walked off campus in a
successful amnesty bid for the protesters.
On April 1, 1969, SDS members attempted to enter the
administration building with a list of demands where they clashed with police.
In response, the university revoked the Kent State SDS chapter charter. On
April 16, a disciplinary hearing involving two protesters resulted in a
confrontation between supporters and opponents of SDS. The Ohio State Highway
Patrol was called, and fifty-eight people were arrested. Four SDS leaders spent
six months in prison due to the incident.
On April 10, 1970, Jerry Rubin, a leader of the Youth
International Party (also known as the Yippies), spoke on campus. In remarks
reported locally, he said: "The
first part of the Yippie program is to kill your parents. They are the first
oppressors." Two weeks after that, Bill Arthrell, an SDS member and
former student, distributed flyers to an event where he said he was going to
napalm a dog. The event turned out to be an anti-napalm teach-in.
Timeline
Thursday, April 30
President Nixon announced that the "Cambodian Incursion" had been launched by United States
combat forces.
Friday, May 1
At Kent State University, a demonstration with about 500
students was held on May 1 on the Commons, a grassy knoll in the center of campus
traditionally used as a gathering place for rallies and protests. As the crowd
dispersed to attend classes by 1 pm, another rally was planned for May 4 to
continue the protest of the expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia. There
was widespread anger, and many protesters called to "bring the war
home." A group of history students buried a copy of the United States
Constitution to symbolize that Nixon had killed it. A sign was put on a tree
asking: "Why is the ROTC building
still standing?" A further protest organized by the Black United
Students (BUS) also took place during the afternoon, to demonstrate solidarity
with antiwar protests at Kent State University and at The Ohio State
University; attracting around 400 students, and ending peacefully at 3:45 pm.
Further issues arose following President Nixon's arrival at
the Pentagon later during the day. Upon his arrival he was greeted by a group
of Pentagon employees; with one female employee commenting in regards to
Nixon's speech announcing the launch of the Cambodian Incursion: "I loved your speech. It made me proud
to be an American". This prompted Nixon's controversial response:
"You see these
bums, you know, blowing up the campuses. Listen, the boys that are on the
college campuses today are the luckiest people in the world, going to the
greatest universities, and here they are burning up the books, storming around
this issue. You name it. Get rid of the war there will be another one."
Trouble exploded in town around midnight when people left a
bar and began throwing beer bottles at police cars and breaking windows in
downtown storefronts. In the process, they broke a bank window, setting off an
alarm. The news spread quickly, and several bars closed early to avoid trouble.
Before long, more people had joined the vandalism.
By the time police arrived, a crowd of 120 had already
gathered. Some people from the crowd lit a small bonfire in the street. The
crowd appeared to be a mix of bikers, students, and transient people. A few
crowd members threw beer bottles at the police and then started yelling
obscenities at them.
The entire Kent police force was called to duty, as well as
officers from the county and surrounding communities. Kent Mayor LeRoy Satrom
declared a state of emergency, called the office of Ohio Governor Jim Rhodes to
seek assistance, and ordered all of the bars to be closed. The decision to
close the bars early only increased tensions in the area. Police eventually
succeeded in using tear gas to disperse the crowd from downtown, forcing them
to move several blocks back to the campus.
Saturday, May 2
City officials and downtown businesses received threats, and
rumors proliferated that radical revolutionaries were in Kent to destroy the
city and university. Several merchants reported they were told that their
businesses would be burned down if they did not display anti-war slogans.
Kent's police chief told the mayor that according to a reliable informant, the
ROTC building, the local army recruiting station, and the post office had been
targeted for destruction that night. There were unconfirmed rumors of students
with caches of arms, plots to spike the local water supply with LSD, and of
students building tunnels to blow up the town's main store. Satrom met with
Kent city officials and a representative of the Ohio Army National Guard.
Because of the rumors and threats, Satrom feared that local officials would not
be able to handle future disturbances. Following the meeting, Satrom decided to
call Rhodes and request that the National Guard be sent to Kent, a request
granted immediately.
The decision to call in the National Guard was made at 5:00
pm, but the guard did not arrive in town that evening until around 10 pm. By
this time, a large demonstration was underway on the campus, and the campus Reserve
Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) building was burning. The arsonists were never
apprehended, and no one was injured in the fire. According to the report of the
President's Commission on Campus Unrest:
Information developed
by an FBI investigation of the ROTC building fire indicates that, of those who
participated actively, a significant portion weren't Kent State students. There
is also evidence to suggest that the burning was planned beforehand: railroad
flares, a machete, and ice picks are not customarily carried to peaceful
rallies.
There were reports that some Kent firemen and police
officers were struck by rocks and other objects while attempting to extinguish
the blaze. Several fire engine companies had to be called because protesters
carried the fire hose into the Commons and slashed it. The National Guard made
numerous arrests, mostly for curfew violations, and used tear gas; at least one
student was slightly wounded with a bayonet.
Sunday, May 3
During a press conference at the Kent firehouse, an
emotional Governor Rhodes pounded on the desk, which can be heard in the
recording of his speech. He called the student protesters un-American,
referring to them as revolutionaries set on destroying higher education in
Ohio.
We've seen here at the city of Kent especially, probably the
most vicious form of campus-oriented violence yet perpetrated by dissident
groups... they make definite plans of burning, destroying, and throwing rocks
at police and at the National Guard and the Highway Patrol. ...this is when
we're going to use every part of the law enforcement agency of Ohio to drive
them out of Kent. We are going to eradicate the problem. We're not going to
treat the symptoms. ...and these people just move from one campus to the other
and terrorize the community. They're worse than the brown shirts and the
communist element and also the night riders and the vigilantes. They're the
worst type of people that we harbor in America. Now I want to say this. They
are not going to take over [the] campus. I think that we're up against the
strongest, well-trained, militant, revolutionary group that has ever assembled
in America.
Rhodes also claimed he would obtain a court order declaring
a state of emergency that would ban further demonstrations and gave the impression
that a situation akin to martial law had been declared; however, he never attempted
to obtain such an order.
During the day, some students came to downtown Kent to help
with clean-up efforts after the rioting, actions which were met with mixed reactions
from local business people. Mayor Satrom, under pressure from frightened
citizens, ordered a curfew until further notice.
Around 8 pm, another rally was held on the campus Commons.
By 8:45 pm, the Guardsmen used tear gas to disperse the crowd, and the students
reassembled at the intersection of Lincoln and Main, holding a sit-in with the
hopes of gaining a meeting with Mayor Satrom and University President Robert
White. At 11:00 pm, the Guard announced that a curfew had gone into effect and
began forcing the students back to their dorms. A few students were bayoneted
by Guardsmen.
Monday, May 4
On Monday, May 4, a protest was scheduled to be held at
noon, as planned three days earlier. University officials attempted to ban the
gathering, handing out 12,000 leaflets stating that the event was canceled.
Despite these efforts, an estimated 2,000 people gathered on the university's
Commons, near Taylor Hall. The protest began with the ringing of the campus's
iron Victory Bell (which had historically been used to signal victories in
football games) to mark the beginning of the rally, and the first protester
began to speak.
According to most estimates, some 200–300 protesters
gathered around the Victory Bell on the Commons, with some 1,000 more gathered
on a hill behind the first crowd. The crowd was largely made up of students
enrolled at the university, with a few non-students (that included Kent State
dropouts and high school students) also present. The crowd appeared leaderless
and was initially peaceful and relatively quiet. One person made a short
speech, and some protesters carried flags.
Orders to disperse
Companies A and C, 1-145th Infantry and Troop G of the
2-107th Armored Cavalry, Ohio National Guard (ARNG), the units on the campus
grounds, under the command of Brigadier General Robert Canterbury, attempted to
disperse the students. The legality of the order to disperse was debated during
a subsequent wrongful death and injury trial. On appeal, the United States
Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled that authorities did indeed have
the right to disperse the crowd.
At about noon, the National Guard obtained a bullhorn from
the university police department and used it to order the crowd to disperse.
However, the announcement was too faint to hear as it elicited no response from
the crowd. Campus patrolman Harold Rice, accompanied by three guardsmen, then
approached the crowd in a National Guard Jeep, again using the bullhorn to
order the students to disperse. Students responded by making obscene gestures
at the Jeep, singing protest songs, and chanting. At some point, a few rocks
were thrown at the Jeep as it drove by the crowd, with one rock striking the
Jeep and a second one striking a guardsman, but without causing any damage. The
crowd ignored repeated orders to disperse.
First attempt to
disperse the crowd with tear gas
After the crowd failed to follow the order to disperse,
grenadiers were ordered to fire tear gas from M79 grenade launchers, but the
canisters fell short and managed only to make the protesters retreat somewhat
from their previous positions. The tear gas was also made ineffective by the
wind. Some protesters lobbed the canisters back at the Guard to the crowd's
merriment. The crowd also began to chant "Pigs
off campus". Another demand to disperse was made over the loudspeaker
but simply elicited more oppositional chanting.
National Guard
advance
After repeatedly failing to disperse the crowd, a group of
96 National Guard troops from A Company and Company C, 145th Infantry, and Troop
G, 107th Armored Cavalry, were ordered to advance. The guardsmen had their
weapons "locked and loaded" (according
to standard Ohio National Guard rules) and affixed with bayonets. Most carried
M1 Garand rifles, with some also carrying .45 handguns, a few carrying shotguns
with No. 7 birdshot and 00 buckshot munitions, and one officer carrying a 22 Beretta
handgun. Before advancing, Company C was instructed to fire only into the air
and for only a single guardsman to fire. It is unknown whether the other two
National Guard groups received any instructions about firing.
As the advancing guardsmen approached the crowd, tear gas
was again fired at the crowd, making the protesters retreat. At this point,
some protesters threw stones at the Guard to no significant effect. Some
students may have brought rocks to the protest anticipating a confrontation.
The students retreated up and over Blanket Hill, heading out
of the Commons area. Once over the hill, the students, in a loose group, moved
northeast along the front of Taylor Hall, with some continuing toward a parking
lot in front of Prentice Hall (slightly northeast of and perpendicular to
Taylor Hall). The guardsmen pursued the protesters over the hill, but rather
than veering left as the protesters had, they continued straight, heading
toward an athletic practice field enclosed by a chain link fence. Here they
remained for about 10 minutes, unsure of how to get out of the area short of
retracing their path: they had boxed themselves into a fenced-in corner. During
this time, the bulk of the students assembled to the left and front of the
guardsmen, approximately 150 to 225 ft (46 to 69 m) away, on the veranda of[citation
needed] Taylor Hall. Others were scattered between Taylor Hall and the Prentice
Hall parking lot, while still others were standing in the parking lot, or
dispersing through the lot as they had been previously ordered. While on the
practice field, the guardsmen generally faced the parking lot, about 100 yards
(91 m) away. At one point, the guardsmen formed a loose huddle and appeared to
be talking to one another. They had cleared the protesters from the Commons
area, and many students had left.
Some students who had retreated beyond the practice field
fence obtained rocks and possibly other objects with which they again began
pelting the guardsmen. The number of rock throwers is unknown, with estimates
of 10–50 throwers. According to an FBI assessment, rock-throwing peaked at this
point. Tear gas was again fired at crowds at multiple locations.
Just before departing the practice field, some members of
Troop G were ordered to kneel and aim their weapons toward the parking lot. The
troop did so, but none of them fired. At the same time, one person (likely an
officer) fired a handgun into the air. The Guard was then ordered to regroup
and move up the hill past Taylor Hall. Protesters began following the Guard as
it retraced its steps up the hill. Some guardsmen claim to have been struck by
rocks as they retreated up the hill. The crowd on top of the hill parted to
allow the guardsmen to pass through. After reaching the crest of Taylor Hall,
the Guard fired at the protesters following them. The guardsmen gave no verbal
warning to the protesters before opening fire.
The shootings
During their climb back to Blanket Hill, several guardsmen
stopped and half-turned to keep their eyes on the students in the Prentice Hall
parking lot. At 12:24 pm, according to eyewitnesses, a sergeant named Myron
Pryor turned and began firing at the crowd of students with his .45 pistol.
Several guardsmen nearest the students also turned and fired their rifles at
the students. In all, at least 29 of the 77 guardsmen claimed to have fired
their weapons, using an estimated 67 rounds of ammunition. The shooting was
determined to have lasted 13 seconds, although John Kifner reported in The New
York Times that "it appeared to go
on, as a solid volley, for perhaps a full minute or a little longer."
When the Guard began firing, many protesters ran while
others dropped to the ground. Some assumed the Guard was firing blanks and
reacted only after they noticed the bullets striking the ground around them.
Eyewitness accounts
Several present related what they saw.
An unidentified person told UPI:
Suddenly, they turned
around, got on their knees, as if they were ordered to, they did it all
together, aimed. And personally, I was standing there saying, they're not going
to shoot, they can't do that. If they are going to shoot, it's going to be
blank.
Chris Butler, who later formed the band The Waitresses, was
there with his friend Jeffrey Miller. Butler said that as the guardsmen formed
in a kneeling position and pointed their rifles, "Everybody laughed, because, c'mon, you're not going to shoot
us."
Another unidentified person told UPI:
The shots were
definitely coming my way, because when a bullet passes your head, it makes a
crack. I hit the ground behind the curve, looking over. I saw a student hit. He
stumbled and fell, to where he was running towards the car. Another student
tried to pull him behind the car; bullets were coming through the windows of
the car.
As this student fell behind the car, I saw another student
go down, next to the curb, on the far side of the automobile, maybe 25 or 30
yards from where I was lying. It was maybe 25, 30, 35 seconds of sporadic
firing.
The firing stopped. I lay there maybe 10 or 15 seconds. I
got up, I saw four or five students lying around the lot. By this time, it was
like mass hysteria. Students were crying, they were screaming for ambulances. I
heard some girl screaming, "They
didn't have blank, they didn't have blank," no, they didn't.
Another witness was Chrissie Hynde, a Kent State student who
would become the lead singer of The Pretenders. In her 2015 autobiography Hynde
described what she saw:
Then I heard the tatatatatatatatatat sound. I thought it was
fireworks. An eerie sound fell over the common. The quiet felt like gravity
pulling us to the ground. Then a young man's voice: "They fucking killed somebody!" Everything slowed down
and the silence got heavier.
The ROTC building, now nothing more than a few inches of
charcoal, was surrounded by National Guardsmen. They were all on one knee and
pointing their rifles at ... us! Then they fired.
By the time I made my way to where I could see them, it was
still unclear what was going on. The guardsmen themselves looked stunned. We
looked at them and they looked at us. They were just kids, 19 years old, like
us. But in uniform. Like our boys in Vietnam.
Gerald Casale, visual artist and future bassist/singer of
Devo, also witnessed the shootings. In 2005, Casale told the Vermont Review:
All I can tell you is
that it completely and utterly changed my life. I was a white hippie boy and
then I saw exit wounds from M1 rifles out of the backs of two people I knew.
Two of the four people who were killed, Jeffrey Miller and
Allison Krause, were my friends. We were all running our asses off from these
motherfuckers. It was total, utter bullshit. Live ammunition and gasmasks –
none of us knew, none of us could have imagined ... They shot into a crowd that
was running from them!
I stopped being a hippie and I started to develop the idea
of devolution. I got real, real pissed off.
In the paper that evening, the Akron Beacon Journal, said
that students were running around armed and that officers had been hurt. So
deputy sheriffs went out and deputized citizens. They drove around with
shotguns and there was martial law for ten days. 7 pm curfew. It was open
season on the students. We lived in fear. Helicopters surrounding the city with
hourly rotating run out to the West Side and back downtown. All first amendment
rights are suspended at the instance when the governor gives the order. All of
the class action suits by the parents of the slain students were all dismissed
out of court because once the governor announced martial law; they had no right
to assemble.
Guardsmen's reasons
for opening fire
Many guardsmen later testified that they fired because they
feared for their lives, which was questioned partly because of the distance
between them and the protesting students. Guardsmen that claimed they feared
for their lives variously listed an assortment of reasons, including: they were
surrounded, the crowd pursuing them was almost on top of them, the protesters "charged" them or were
advancing on them "in a threatening
manner", "the sky was black with stones", and a sniper fired
at them; some listed a combination of multiple such reasons, and some gave no
explanation as to why they believed their lives were in danger. Most guardsmen
that fired said they did so because they heard others fire or assumed an order
to fire in the air had been given and did not claim they felt in danger. There
was no order to fire, and no guardsmen requested permission, though several guardsmen
later claimed they heard some sort of command to fire. Some guardsmen
(including some who claimed their lives were in danger) had their backs turned
to the protesters when the firing broke out. No guardsman claimed to have been
hit by rocks immediately before firing, and the guardsmen were not surrounded.
The FBI determined that at least two guardsmen who denied firing likely lied
and had fired and that there was reason to believe that guardsmen's claims of
fearing for their lives were fabricated after the event.
Time magazine later wrote that "triggers were not pulled accidentally at Kent State".
The President's Commission on Campus Unrest avoided probing why the shootings
happened. Instead, it harshly criticized both the protesters and the Guardsmen,
but it concluded that "the
indiscriminate firing of rifles into a crowd of students and the deaths that
followed were unnecessary, unwarranted, and inexcusable."
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