Thirty- two years ago campus protests against the Vietnam War were a problem. One such protest on May 4th 1970 on the campus of Kent State University in Ohio lead to the death of four collage students.
 

 
*What exactly in the war was causing so many protests in America?*
     When Nixon was elected president he pledged he would end the Vietnam War and attempt to bring all Americans together. But American B-52 bombers were illegally bombing Viet Cong training camps while Nixon lied repeatedly to Americans about the bombings.

 

 
*How did this happen?*
     It all started on May 1st, 1970. Forty- three windows were broken in downtown Kent during a rampage by hundreds of anti-war students and some Vietnam veterans too. $5,000 worth of damage was done to mostly banks, loan companies, public utility offices, and other “Political” businesses.
     On May 2nd, the Kent State University’s Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) Building was burned to the ground. The lack of police intervention for ninety minutes and the fire AFTER the building was under control by law enforcements officials led to lots of unanswered questions.
"*Did the authorities stay away so the students would burn the building and create an excuse to bring in the National Guard to Kent State?

*Why did the building burn AFTER the students were chased away?

*Why has no student ever been convicted of arson at Kent State in 1970?

*Who really burned the ROTC building at Kent State?

*Why?"
     May 3rd- The pro-war, Republican Ohio Governor James Rhodes arrived at KSU for a tour of the damage and a news conference.  He said KSU students were "The worst type of people we harbor in America... worse than the Communist... We're going to eradicate the problem!"  James Rhodes sent in the National Guard.  The unit that responded, mostly from Troop G and Company A, were badly trained and tired from just coming from a riot elsewhere.  They attacked the students with tear gas and rifles.  Several students and one disabled veteran were slashed and stabbed by bayonets for yelling and cursing at them from cars.     
     By May 4th there were four hundred Ohio National Guardsmen in the city of Kent and eight hundred on campus.  When the riot started at noon seventy five of the eight hundred attacked.  They through tear gas canisters into the crowd that were thrown back.  The crowd ran over "Blanket Hill" and into the Prentice Hall dormitory parking lot.  The guardsmen stood in the practice football field for about ten minutes.  Rocks were thrown by the protesters and then thrown back by the guards, since the crowds were over 100 feet away they were harmless to both sides.  As the students walked closer about a dozen guardsmen kneeled and aimed.  Then a couple of minutes later the troops regrouped and started to march back over the hill.  At the top about twenty- eight turned around and fired.  They shot their M-1 rifles into a crowd of unarmed students for thirteen long seconds.  sixty- seven deadly bullets were fired all together.  Thirteen students were shot four of which died.  The other nine were badly injured.  Most of the students were over 300 feet away.  Out of the four killed only two were protesters.  The other two were simply bystanders on their way to class.     

 

 
Prentice Hall parking lot where the students were shot.

 
 

 
*Who was shot?*
    Jeffrey Miller- shot through the head from 275 feet away at age 20.  He was a peaceful, gentle, young man from New York City.  He was soft- spoken but strongly opposed the Vietnam War.
    Allison Krause was shot through the arm and chest from 350 feet away.  She was an Aspring artist in Honors College.  She was only 19.
     William (Bill) Shroeder was shot in the back from about 400 feet away.  He was a bystander- killed as he walked to class.  He was what some people would call an "All American Boy."  He was also a ROTC student of military science and business administration.  Bill was 19.
     Sandra (Sandy) Scheuer was shot  through the throat at about 390 feet away.  Sandy was a bystander.  She was a member of Alpha Xi Delta Sorority.  Sandy was 20.
     The nine others killed were: 
   Alan Canfora- shot in the right wrist.
   John Cleary- shot in his left chest.
   Tom Grace was shot in his left ankle.
   Dean Kahler- shot in the back and is now paralyzed from the waist down.
   Joe Lewis was shot twice- once in the stomach and out the buttocks and the other passed through his left leg.
   Scott Mackenzie- shot in the back of the neck and out his cheek.
   Jim Russell was shot twice- once in the right thigh and once in his forehead.
   Robert Stamps- shot in his right buttocks.
   Doug Wrentmore- bullet went through his right knee.
     Most of the students shot were sent to Robinson Memorial Hospital.  All of the students shot were full time students at KSU.

Allison on the stretcher.

Bill where he was shot in the parking lot.
 

 
*Why did the guards fire?*
     No one knows why the guards fired.  They were seconds away from safety.  None of them had been injured worse than a minor bruise, and none of the students were armed.  Most of the guards said that they fired because everyone else was.  (Way to follow the crowd!)  But in 1975 in Federal Court in Cleveland "one of the National Guard officers admitted he gave an order to fire on the unarmed students at Kent State."  There was also an undercover FBI agent carrying a gun that day.  He turned his gun into the police and they announced it hadn't been shot.  Then later ballistic tests done by the FBI showed it had been shot after it was last cleaned- but it was too late to tell if it had been fired on May 4th. 
     There was no investigation to see who had fired first or who killed the students.  All of them were wearing gas masks so it was impossible to tell who they were.  Many have admitted they fired but none have admitted they fired first.  Nixon stalled for years announcing "investigations" that led nowhere.  He felt that the demonstrators were "bums that had it coming." 
     The victims filed a civil suit against the State of Ohio and the Ohio National Guards.  The State of Ohio paid $650,000 which was divided by thirteen ways. 
Dean Kahler- $350,000 John Cleary- $22,000
Joe Lewis- $42,500 Alan Canfora- $15,000
Tom Grace- $37,500 James Russell- $15,000
Scott Mackenzie- $27,500 Parents of the four dead- $15,000
Legal Expenses- $75,000
     The Kent State Shootings sparked a wave of National student outrage known as the National Student Strike of May, 1970.  The response to the shootings was much greater than that of the three blacks shot due to racism at South Carolina State college in 1968.  Kent state had the most American students killed and the only incident where women were killed.  Alan Canfora realized that "America in those times was perfectly willing to harass, beat, and kill its own children if they disagreed with government policy."  It changed the course of American history.  Each year on May 4th a rally has been held at KSU as a memorial to that day.

 

 

 

 

Rachelle Brown

8th American History

Rossville Jr. High

Post-World War II American Project

May 2002

 

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