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Kent State Guardsman On Trial

Kent State Guardsman On Trial image
Parent Issue
Day
8
Month
November
Year
1974
OCR Text

Kent State Guardsman on Trial

More than four years after the killing of four students and the wounding of nine others at a demonstration at Kent State protesting the U.S. invasion of Cambodia, eight National Guardsmen are on trial for their role in the shootings. The eight were indicted last May by a federal grand jury on charges of violating the civil rights of the protesting students and willfully intimidating and assaulting them.

The trial, which began jury selection on Monday, October 21, will focus on the guilt or innocence of the eight former Guardsmen, but observes are hoping that it will also shed new light on many still unexplained questions surrounding the incident.

Specifically, were the shootings premeditated? Was there a conspiracy among the Guardsmen? Was there any order to open fire, and who fired the first shot or shots - was there any FBI involvement?

Furthermore, were the Guardsmen really endangered, by the students, as they claimed? What responsibility must be borne by "higher-ups" such as then Ohio governor James Rhodes who ordered the rally broken up, or Nation Guard commanders? And finally, why did it take more than three years tor a federal grand - jury to investigate the incident?

While the Kent State tragedy has been one of the most extensively investigated events in American history, investigations have fallen short of answering these questions and explaining what happened.

Certain facts, however, remain beyond dispute.

On April 30,1870 Nixon announced that U-S. ground combat troops had begun a "limited incursion" in to Cambodia. The next day, at over 300 universities and colleges, thousands of students and youths gathered to protest this escalation of the Vietnam War.

 At Kent State, the next few days we re marked by an escalation of student protest - the burning of the ROTC building May 2, and the immediate calling in of the state National Guard by Kent Mayor Satrom.

On Sunday, May 3, 1970, Governor Rhodes told a Kent.; Ohio press conference:

"We're going to employ every force of law that we have under our authority ... We are going to employ every weapon possible. The same group that we're dealing with here today - and there are three or four of them - they only have one thing in mind and that is to destroy higher education in Ohio . . .

"These people just move from one campus to the other and terrorize a community. They're worse than the Brownshirts and the Communist element and also the night riders and the vigilantes, They're the worst type of-people that we harbor in America."

The day following Governor Rhode's press conference, the members of the 107 regiment, Troop G, of the Ohio National Guard shot and killed four students at Kent State University.

In the immediate aftermath of the Kent State tragedy, protests escalated at campuses across the country. And these too were often met with violence. On May 14th, Mississippi police and highway patrol at Jackson State College shot and killed two students and wounded seven others.

LNS