Kent State Shooting- Politics in the 1970's

On April 30, 1970, in the midst of the Vietnam War, President Richard Nixon went on national television to make a monumental announcement. In this announcement He addressed the United States recent invasion of Cambodia and the need for 150,000 additional draftees. News of the draft demands provoked rioting all across the nation, particularly on collegiate campuses. Most notable being at Kent State University in Ohio, where protesters got out of hand leading to the engagement of the entire Kent police force, as well as well the surrounding communities.

On May 2, the governor of Ohio felt the need to dispatch 900 members of the National Guard, in hopes of striking fear into the uncontrolled hooligans. However, the riots continued to escalade. As the National Guard arrived, they were witnesses to a scene of the ROTC building being set ablaze.

May third was about the last attempt for peace for peace by the overseeing officials. Ohio Governor, James Rhoades prepared a statement that was anything but calm. He noted that they would use whatever force necessary to subdue the crowd, which he called the worst people in America.

On May 4, an anti-war rally was scheduled to be held; however, the government officials did their best to ban this rally from occurring. As a result of guard’s attempts to disperse the crowd, it only resulted in thrown rocks, and shouts of protest. The police were forced backwards, provoking twenty-eight guardsmen to open fire on a crowd of protestors. Approximately sixty shots were fired in thirteen seconds. Most of them aiming in the air or at the ground; though, unfortunately a few shot directly into the crowd wounding nine and killing four. If were not for University faculty marshals, further tragedy would have surely occurred. They pleaded with the students to not risk their lives any further by continuing on in protest.

Following the shooting, disturbance across the nation increased dramatically, leading to the shutdown of 500 college campuses. Despite the public outrage, the Justice Department initially ignored the need to instigate a grand jury investigation of the shooting. Though the president’s commission did release a statement acknowledging that the action of the guardsmen had been "unnecessary, unwarranted, and inexcusable." Eventually, a grand jury indicted eight of the guardsmen, but the charges were dismissed for lack of evidence. Some forty years later, this event is still remembered as a tragedy, with love and support still going out to those families who lost loved ones.