Kent State Shooting
Material C
In my opinion, there was a US government conspiracy to commit a massacre
at Kent State so American students would be terrorized into silence and
stop the anti-war movement. The key link indicating the Kent State tragedy
was a planned massacre can only be proven by undeniable evidence of a
verbal command by Ohio National Guard officers to fire deadly M1 rifles
into our crowd of unarmed student anti-war protesters…..
President Nixon had a longstanding grudge against Kent anti-war
protesters who had interrupted his campaign speech at the University of
Akron (Ohio) in October of 1968 and his inauguration parade on January 20,
1969, in Washington, DC. President Nixon spoke by telephone twice with
Ohio Governor James Rhodes during the days just BEFORE the Kent State
massacre.
Did Nixon give the OK for his pal Governor Rhodes in Ohio to plan the Kent
State massacre? Why would Governor Rhodes encourage his Ohio National
Guard to kill students?
Rhodes wanted to crack down on militant Kent students in order to win
votes for his May 5, 1970, election which was one day AFTER the May 4 Kent
massacre. Rhodes was behind in the polls by 8% only one week before the
May 5 Ohio Republican Party primary election. After Rhodes' inflammatory
speech in Kent on May 3 and the massacre May 4, Rhodes confused
conservative voters but still lost his May 5 election but only by less
than 1% of the votes in his US Senate primary election…..
However, it's clear that there was a verbal order to fire and a dozen
TROOP G killers stopped, turned, began to shoot and continued to fire 67
times into our crowd of unarmed students. The well-coordinated actions of
these triggermen seemed quite planned and executed like a firing squad
upon orders to shoot.
Taken from: http://alancanfora.com/ one of the victims and eyewitnesses to
the tragedy
Note: There is a tape of the incident that a student sent to the
FBI…according to Canfora on the tape you can hear "Right here! Get Set!
Point! Fire!" before the 13-second volley of gunfire
Kent State Shooting
Material D
My name is Naomi Goelman Etzkin. I lived in Olson Hall, room 409,
overlooking the football field. Got up on Monday, May 4th, to see
additional troops camped on that football field. And watched that morning
as different units of the National Guard were practicing running around
our dorm and other buildings, in what appeared to be getting familiar with
the setup on campus. That was midterm week and I had an exam scheduled -an English exam -- for 1:10 p.m. We had received flyers -- there were
student flyers -- there were also some flyers that had been sent around by
the faculty senate, which had not been permitted to meet over the weekend.
And we knew that there was to be a rally at noon on the Commons. And so we
went to the rally.
We were on the side of the hill that was between what was then the Student
Union and the architecture building. And there were speakers at the bell,
which was always the focal point of the rallies. And the National Guard
was just hanging out at that time. There was a lot of chanting and
speaking. And then the National Guard began to throw canisters of tear
gas. Students really dispersed somewhat; but also some students picked up
the canisters and threw them back at the Guard. And they were cheered on
by everyone who was at the rally. There was kind of a different sort of
feeling than from the night before -- and Saturday night -- just not so
much fear of the National Guard. And Sunday had been kind of a circus
atmosphere where people were driving around our campus to come and see
this spectacle. It was a gorgeous day and everyone was out.
The students then ... then the Guard began to march up the hill, and
students dispersed. I went over the hill on the side of the pagoda. There
was a practice football field on the other side of the driveway that led
to the parking lot by the architecture building, and the Guardsmen marched
over the hill and down to the practice football field. They were being
given some orders; they knelt, they pointed guns, then they got up and
they started to march back up the hill by this time. They were separated
from the rest of the Guardsmen. This time they really had been surrounded
by the students, because when they marched up the hill and the students
went all around the hill, then they marched back up to the pagoda. There
was taunting and jeering at the Guards, calling to them to get off the
campus. And that moment -- without any warning -- because they already had
been shouting some orders and going through little maneuvers and marching
right and left and so on. Evidently the order came to shoot, and they
pointed in the opposite direction where I was standing. When we heard the
gunshots, we did not believe that they were real bullets. We thought they
were shooting in the air, and we just didn't believe that bullets could be
real. And we went running back to our dormitory, and we watched out the
fourth floor window in Olson
Hall as the ambulances came over the hill. People began coming back into
the dorm, having walked over bleeding bodies. We then went to another
window in the dorm, and we watched Dr. Frank address the students who were
still on the hill. Everybody sat down in shock, and he said -- that to the
best of my recollection --that something like, "They had already committed
murder and they can do it again. Now I want you to follow me off this
hill." And miraculously everyone followed
Taken from:
http://speccoll.library.kent.edu/4may70/oralhistory/etzkin.html
Kent State Shooting
Material E
The Guardsmen
Larry Shafer
Mr. Shafer was a Guardsman at Kent State in May, 1970 and was one of the
defendants in the trials that followed. Mr. Shafer is one of the few
Guardsmen to speak openly in the incident. An interview with John Dunphy,
of the Akron Beacon Journal on May 4, 1980, summed up Shafer's feeling
about what happened at Kent State.
Guardsman Ends 10-Year Silence on KSU
A former Ohio National Guardsman who shot and wounded a Kent State
University student 10 years ago today says the general in charge of the
troops did not have control of the situation.
"If that general had had his head out of his - - -, he never would have
put us in that situation,"
Larry Shafer, the former Guardsman, said after a decade of silence.
"The Kent State shootings could have been prevented with proper
leadership. There was never any real need for the National Guard to be in
Kent in May 1970."
…..Shafer, 34, a Ravenna fireman, said those involved in the shooting have
had to "keep their mouths shut" because of the legal proceedings stemming
from the shootings. The end of those proceedings came in January 1979,
when the guard and the plaintiffs in a $46 million civil damage suit
agreed to a $675,000 out-of-court settlement.
….."The Mayor of Kent pushed the panic button," Shafer said. "His police
couldn't handle the situation, so he called the National Guard."
….Shager also criticized Gov. James A. Rhodes and said Rhodes' decision to
send troops to Kent was politically inspired to help his unsuccessful 1970
candidacy for the U.S. Senate. Shafer said one of the lessons learned from
Kent State was that "you don't send people into a situation like that with
the heavy armament that we had."
"We were combat troops," Shafer said. "They were not sending us into a war
zone."
….On the afternoon of May 4, the guard was ordered to break up a noon
rally on the campus.
After moving the demonstrators with tear gas from the university's Commons
up a hill and onto a practice football field and a parking lot, the
guardsmen were attempting to make a hasty retreat.
Shafer said his superiors ignored the hours of riot training the troops
had gone through before they were sent to Kent.
"The way the whole thing was handled, the riot training we had prior to
that, they just threw it out the window. All those officers and not a one
of them seemed to remember what we were trained," Shafer said. "The whole
thing was a farce."
As the retreating guardsmen reached the crest of a hill, they turned and
fired into the demonstrators.
Shafer said he recalls hearing a single shot, then turned around to face
the students. He said the guardsman on his right fired once into the air,
so he fired once into the air.
Shafer said his rifle jammed and he had to eject the casing manually. When
he finished that, he said, he noticed a demonstrator coming at him with
his hand raised in an obscene gesture and his other hand behind his back.
"I felt I was in immediate danger, not knowing whether he had a weapon or
a rock," Shafer said. "I felt my life was in danger."
Shafer fired another shot that ripped through the abdomen of Joseph Lewis,
then an 18-year-old student from Massillon. Lewis now lives in Oregon.
Shafer said there was a sudden surge of rock-throwing, screaming
demonstrators just before the shooting.
An FBI investigation concluded that the guardsmen were not surrounded at
the time of the shooting and that there was not sudden surge of students.
The FBI's report also concluded that guardsmen concocted the story that
their lives were in danger after the shooting.
When asked about the FBI's conclusions, Shafer said, "The investigators
were not there. They didn't know the full scope of what it was to be
there. I know what I saw."
Shafer said there was no conspiracy or prior agreement among the guardsmen
to fire into the crowd of demonstrators.
The FBI's investigation eventually led to a federal grand jury that was
convened in December 1973. After three months of testimony, eight
guardsmen, including Shafer, were indicted on criminal charges of
violating the civil rights of demonstrators. They were later acquitted. ….
Taken From: http://may4archive.org/accounts.shtml
Material C
Who is this person? In
other words a student,
guard, witness, etc.
What is their story?
Give a summary of
what they believe and
are saying..
What is their bias? In
other words why might
they be lying? Do you
believe them?
Material D
Material E