Many cases of student protest lead to improvement of laws or opinions. But not all are successful. Kent State University was a witness to an unsuccessful protest which led to tragedy. Four students were killed and twelve other persons were wounded or injured when National Guardsmen opened fire on a group of students. Major events leading to the shooting are as follows…
Riots had been occurring for several weeks previous to the Monday of the shooting. The week of April 27th proved to be the most violent so far, with students of Kent State University, as well as townspeople, participating in acts of destruction. With people hanging on traffic lights, braking bank and store windows, and setting fire to stores and houses, it was not long before police intervened. National Guardsmen were soon to follow.
On April 30th, 1970, Nixon announced that the US would intervene in Cambodia. This was said to be the main spark of the riots. That day, Kent State students held a protest on their campus, protesters from town were also herded on campus. The scene turned violent around midnight, alcohol said to be one factor.
The following day’s protest led to the campus’ ROTC building being burnt down. The students took the firefighters hoses and sprayed the firefighters with them to hold them back. Various acts of graffiti, vandalism, and destruction of public and private property were plenty. Once the concentration of the mob was on campus grounds, was when the real frenzy started. Rocks and beer bottles were thrown at the Guardsmen, and tear gas was used on the mobs for the first time.
No one really knows why the shooting started, or for that matter, if it could have even been avoided, but we do know the actual shooting itself is not so controversial, considering that three tape recorders, operated by would be reporters form the School of Journalism, were running at that moment.
At 12:24, there was a single shot—some people heard it as two almost simultaneous shots—then a period of silence lasting about two seconds, then a prolonged but thin fusillade, lasting about eight seconds, then another silence, and two final shots. The shooting had covered thirteen seconds, and fifty-five M-1 bullets seem to have been discharged, plus five pistol shots and the single blast from a shotgun. Twenty-eight different Guardsmen did the firing, but this fact should be remembered: If each of the men had fired his weapon directly at the massed students, the killing would have been terrible, for a steel-jacketed M-1 bullet can carry two miles and penetrate two or four or six bodies in doing so. Fortunately, many of the men found It impossible to fire into a crowd and pointed their rifles upward—avoiding what could have been a general slaughter.
But, apparently, some Guardsmen were fed up with the riotous behavior of the students and in fear of their lives, did fire directly into the crowd, and when the volley ended, thirteen bodies were scattered over the grass and the distant parking area. Four were dead, and nine were wounded, more or less severely.
Following are some statistics of the victims: Thirteen young people shot: eleven men, two girls. All were registered at the university and all were attending classes formally. If the wounded were arranged in order of their nearness to the Guard, the closest young man was 71 feet away from the rifles, the farthest 745 feet away. The distances of the four dead at the time they were hit are as follows:
Jeffrey Glenn Miller, fifth closest265 feet
Allison B. Krause, eighth closest343 feet
William K. Schroeder, tenth closest382 feet
Sandra Lee Scheuer, eleventh closest390 feet
--Kent State (What happened and Why) 342.
In the days of May following the shootings at Kent State this nation saw many hard times. Some 760 universities and colleges either closed down completely or came close to doing so, and students talked openly of revolution. Fortunately, during the late summer, when students returned to college with a new outlook, careful counsel prevailed and the warfare between generations subsided.