AP Was There: Ohio National Guard killed protesters at Kent State University
KENT, Ohio — The Ohio National Guard opened fire on unarmed students during a war protest at Kent State University on May 4, 1970. Four students were killed and nine others were injured. Not all the injured or dead were involved in the demonstration, which opposed the American bombing of neutral Cambodia during the Vietnam War.
The confrontation, dubbed the May 4 massacre, was a defining moment for a country sharply divided over the long war in which more than 58,000 Americans have died. It led to a strike by 4 million students in the US, temporarily closing about 900 colleges and universities. The events also played a crucial role in turning public opinion against the conflicts in Southeast Asia, according to historians.
In the hours immediately after the shooting, reporters at the chaotic scene struggled to determine who fired the shots and why. One theory was that Guard members fired after spotting a sniper. The Associated Press reported that a highway patrol official refuted the sniper theory.
Here’s one of the news stories the AP published at the time:
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An Ohio Highway Patrol official today disputed reports from the Ohio National Guard that a sniper was spotted by a police helicopter before Guardsmen shot and killed four Kent State University students during an anti-war demonstration on Monday.
The university, which had to be evacuated after the shooting, was virtually deserted this morning and was under heavy police and military guard.
Earlier, a fire destroyed a barn and several farm tractors in a corner of the campus, and fire officials said they believed the blaze was deliberately set.
Sergeant Michael Delaney of the Guard’s public relations staff said after the shootings: “At the estimated time of the shooting on campus, the Ohio Highway Patrol – via helicopter – spotted a sniper on a nearby building.”
Today a patrol officer, Major DE Manly, said: “There is nothing in the log about the sighting.” Manly said if police officers in the helicopter circling the campus had seen a shooter, it would have been recorded.
Guard officials claimed Monday and again today that the Guardsmen returned fire with a small-caliber weapon in defense of their lives. A crowd of students had surrounded about thirty Guardsmen and were throwing rocks and chunks of concrete at them.
The Justice Department and National Guard officials have launched separate investigations into the gunfire explosion that left two girls and two young men dead.
The dead were:
Mrs. Allison Krause, 19, Pittsburgh, PA; Mrs. Sandy Lee Scheuer, 20, Youngstown, Ohio; Jeffrey G. Miller, 20, Plainview, NY, and William K. Schroeder, 19, Lorain, Ohio.
Portage County Coroner Dr. Robert Sybert said all four were shot from the side, “from left to right.” All died of a single gunshot wound, he said.
Miss Krause was hit in the left shoulder, Miss Scheurer in the neck, Schroeder in the lower left side of the chest and Miller in the head.
Dr. Sybert said the final autopsy report wouldn’t be ready for about a week.
Three students remained in critical condition today. One of them, Dean Kahler, of East Canton, Ohio, was paralyzed from the waist down, according to Paul Jacobs, administrator of Robinson Memorial Hospital in Ravenna.
Eight other people, including two security guards, were hospitalized. One of the two guards was being treated for shock and the other had collapsed from exhaustion.
The Cleveland Plain Dealer, Ohio’s largest newspaper, editorially called for “an immediate investigation and swift steps to prevent a repeat of the most tragic campus violence ever seen in the United States.”
“Many questions will have to be answered: Why were these people shot? Who shot first? How could these deaths have been prevented?
President Nixon lamented the deaths on campus. In a statement from the White House, he said:
“This should once again remind us all that when dissent turns to violence, it invites tragedy. I hope that this tragic and unfortunate incident will strengthen the resolve of all campuses, administrators, teachers and students of the country to stand resolutely for the right that exists in this country of peaceful dissent and equally firmly against the resort to violence as a means of expressing oneself in this way.”
The campus and the city of Kent were placed on lockdown after the shooting.
School officials ordered faculty, staff and 19,000 students to leave. Classes were suspended indefinitely by university President Robert I. White.
Later, Portage County Prosecutor Ronald Kane, armed with a court order, officially closed the university until further notice.
Patrols of guardsmen and state police officers roamed the campus, blocking all entrances Monday evening.
Businesses in the city of Kent and the access roads to the city were cordoned off by police and guards.
Nixon said he would order a Justice Department investigation if the state requested one, and Governor James A. Rhodes subsequently asked the FBI to investigate.
The governor had sent the Ohio National Guard to campus Saturday evening after a demonstration by about 1,000 students that destroyed the Army ROTC building in a fire.
Jerry Stoklas, 20, a photographer at the campus newspaper, said he witnessed the shootings from a rooftop.
He said about 400 students harassed the guards and “they turned around and opened fire. I saw five people go down.”
Other witnesses said the protesters pelted the guards with stones and chunks of concrete.
Stoklas said the troops withdrew, but the protesters followed. He said the guards “turned around several times, apparently in an attempt to scare them.”
Sergeant Michael Delaney of the guard’s public relations staff said 20 to 30 rounds of MI rifle ammunition were fired.
“At the approximate time of the campus shooting,” he added. “The Ohio Highway Patrol – via helicopter – spotted a sniper on a nearby building.”
Some students claimed that the “sniper” was actually one of the many student photographers at Taylor Hall.
Guard spokesmen said 900 to 1,000 people were involved in the demonstration at the university’s Commons and that guards had used up their tear gas supply as they dispersed the crowd.
The Commander of the National Guard, Adj. Gen. Sylvester T. Del Corso said the troops began shooting with semiautomatic rifles after a sniper on the roof shot at them.
Gene Williams, a student newspaper employee, said he saw the troops “turn in unison, as if responding to an order,” and fire into the crowd.
Brig. Gen. Robert H. Canterbury, who was in direct command of the guard contingent on campus, said no order to shoot had been given.
“A soldier always has the option to shoot if he thinks his life is in danger,” he said. “The crowd came at the men from three sides.
“The shooting lasted about two to three seconds. Officers on the scene immediately called for a ceasefire.”
Canterbury said an investigation into the shooting would seek to determine which guards fired first, which others fired and actually hit students, and how much ammunition they consumed.
The shooting marked the culmination of student demonstrations and civil disturbances on campus and in the city that began Friday in the wake of President Nixon’s address to the nation Thursday evening about sending U.S. troops to Cambodia.
About 500 students attended a peaceful demonstration on campus Friday afternoon, but late that evening about 500 people, most of them students, went on the rampage downtown. Bonfires were lit in the streets and several windows of shops and cars were smashed.
About 1,000 students demonstrated on campus Saturday evening and some of them set fire to the ROTC building with railroad flares. That’s when the National Guard, which had been on standby in Akron, was ordered to the city.
About 1,200 students staged a sit-in at an intersection on Sunday evening, in defiance of an emergency order from Rhodes banning all outdoor gatherings in the city or on campus. They were driven back to campus by guards with bayonets on their guns.
Earlier Sunday evening, the security guard used tear gas to break up a march on campus by an estimated 1,500 students who violated the governor’s emergency order.