What if you knew her and found her dead on the ground?

[Loyal Rogue]

You might be interested to listen to an interview with both a Professor from Kent State and a student who was shot and paralyzed about the events from that day.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...ryId=126480349
Click on the listen to story button.

Biased or not, listening to eyewitness accounts and testimony are quite a bit different than reading a summary of opinions from someone who wasn't there.

[silverx2]

no offense, but eye witness accounts from people involved are the worst way to judge a situation.

crowd-
"we were sitting and minding our own business and for no reason what so ever they shot me!"

Soldiers-
"they had sniper riffles and grenades"

facts-
they told them before hand the rally was canceled due to escalating violence in the days leading up to the rally

The national guard arrived and ordered them to disperse

The national guard used teargas to try and disperse the crowd

The crowd threw rocks at the national guard
the crowd threw the tear gas(the non lethal way to dispersing a crowd of 2000) back at the national guard

The national guard then began to march on the students, the students scattered, fearing a larger issue a small group of national guardsmen followed a group of students and got lost, what happens next is up for debate.

my feeling is once the students committed a violent act, the guardsmen were well within their right to open fire. the students had every opportunity to disperse, they did not. the innocent people injured/killed would have had to been oblivious to not know about what was happening that day and in the days prior.

[Loyal Rogue]

my feeling is once the students committed a violent act, the guardsmen were well within their right to open fire.

And there lies the answer behind your answer.

You believe it's OK to execute those who don't obey orders, protestors throwing gravel, as well as any and all innocent bystanders nearby, on the spot.
I don't.

This is where we disagree.

[Loyal Rogue]

no offense, but eye witness accounts from people involved are the worst way to judge a situation.

LOL
You're right... it's much better to get your information secondhand from people who weren't there and didn't witness anything.

Btw, ever hear of the game "Telephone"?

[silverx2]

LOL
You're right... it's much better to get your information secondhand from people who weren't there and didn't witness anything.

Btw, every hear of the game "Telephone"?

did i ever tell you the stories about when i served, i served during granada. i still have nightmares man. It was 10 times worse then WW2 i was there. true story.

[Loyal Rogue]

did i ever tell you the stories about when i served, i served during granada. i still have nightmares man. It was 10 times worse then WW2 i was there. true story.

I think that if there were hundreds of other people who saw you there and you took a bullet to the spine during a major conflict that paralyzed you while you were serving I would certainly listen to your story and give it a little more weight than a bunch of anonymous scribblings on a wikipedia page from people who weren't there.

[FlashLackey]

The few who were having a rally were being peaceful until they were provoked and then attacked by the guardsmen with teargas.

Not according to eye-witness accounts.

The guard told the crowd to go home for their own safety via bullhorn. The crowd responded by throwing rocks and a bottle by another account.

me?? I'd leave

...or I would do what the majority of those soldiers did, stand around NOT shooting people.

The guardsmen didn't have the luxury of being able to leave.

It may have been better had the guardsmen that shot kept their nerves like the other troops. However, that is speculation. Had the guards "left" or stood around doing nothing, there is no telling what the event would have led to. It's possible that it would have been a worse outcome than what happened.

So in other words, you have no basis or evidence of eyewitness accounts to back up your position other than your interpretation by twisting the meaning of a few words in the summary by author.

As I've pointed out multiple times before, the article I linked to is based on multiple eye-witness accounts. Eye-witness accounts were part of the multiple court decisions. My position is supported by multiple eye-witness accounts rather than the isolated examples you have. That's a lot of multiples.

I said no such thing and took no such position.

Do you think that Guantanamo detainees should have criminal trials?

Do you take the outcome of the OJ trial as the God's honest fact that OJ was innocent?

No. However, I take multiple court cases that each involve testimony from multiple eye-witness accounts in a controlled environment with legal repercussions for lying as much stronger evidence than the anecdotal examples from one side of the incident that you have dug up.

It is not against the law to go to university, especially at exam time.

It is also not against the law to defend yourself when faced with violence. It's not against the law to disperse an illegal riot. The only people breaking the law in this case were the violent protesters. That's why they are the ones that should be held accountable for the deaths.

I would be interested in reading the accounts by the soldiers who actually fired on the students that day.

I couldn't find direct testimony. Seems like that should be available somewhere as public record...

Some more links:

The guardsmen had bruises and contusions: http://news.google.com/newspapers?ni...g=4207,3191997

Not sure about you. But, "gravel" is not able to cause bruises or contusions in my experience.

Here's an interesting one with evidence released just last month indicating that shots may have been fired at the guardsmen first:

Previously undisclosed FBI documents suggest that the Kent State antiwar protests were more meticulously planned than originally thought and that one or more gunshots may have been fired at embattled Ohio National Guardsmen before their killings of four students and woundings of at least nine others on that searing day in May 1970.

...

The upheaval that enveloped the northeastern Ohio campus actually began three days earlier, in downtown Kent. Stirred to action by President Nixon's expansion of U.S. military operations in Cambodia, a roving mob of earnest antiwar activists, hard-core radicals, curious students and others smashed 50 bank and store windows, looted a jewelry store and hurled bricks and bottles at police.

Four officers suffered injuries, and the mayor declared a civil emergency. Only tear gas dispersed the mob.

An exhaustive review later concluded that this unrest on the streets — the worst in Kent's history — was "not an organized riot or a planned protest."

But the FBI's investigation swiftly uncovered reliable evidence that suggested otherwise.

...

Yet the declassified FBI files show the FBI already had developed credible evidence suggesting that there was indeed a sniper and that one or more shots may have been fired at the guardsmen first.

Rumors of a sniper had circulated for at least a day before the fatal confrontation, the documents show. And a memorandum sent to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover on May 19, 1970, referred to bullet holes found in a tree and a statue — evidence, the report stated, that "indicated that at least two shots had been fired at the National Guard."

Another interviewee told agents that a guardsman had spoken of "a confirmed report of a sniper."

It also turned out that the FBI had its own informant and agent-provocateur roaming the crowd, a part-time Kent State student named Terry Norman, who had a camera. Mr. Norman also was armed with a snub-nosed revolver that FBI ballistics tests, first declassified in 1977, concluded had indeed been discharged on that day.

Then there was the testimony of an ROTC cadet whose identity remains unknown, one of the pervasive redactions concealing the names of all the FBI agents who conducted the interviews and of all those whom they interrogated. Although presumably angry over the demonstrators' destruction of the campus ROTC building, the cadet's calm, precise firsthand account nonetheless carries a credibility not easily dismissed.

Before the fatal volley, the ROTC cadet told the FBI, he "heard one round, a pause, two rounds, and then the M-1s opened up."

The report continued that the cadet "stated that the first three rounds were definitely not M-1s. He said they could possibly have been a .45 caliber. … [He] further stated that he heard confirmed reports of sniper fire coming in over both the National Guard radio and the state police radio."

The cadet also told the FBI he observed demonstrators carrying baseball bats, golf clubs and improvised weapons, including pieces of steel wire cut into footlong sections, along with radios and other electronic devices "used to monitor the police and Guard wavelengths."

...

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...illings/print/

Lot's of eye-witness testimony in there for LR to sink his teeth into.

[david petley]

Is this the same Washington Times owned by Reverend Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church?

some quotes by Sun Myung Moon -

I know the established Christian theology... I know the enemy, but the enemy doesn't know me. Thus the enemy has already lost the war.

God has sent me to America in the role of a doctor, in the role of a fire fighter.

In restoring man from evil sovereignty, we must cheat.

The time has come when the whole world must be concerned about me. From now on, American Christianity must follow me.

The whole world is in my hand, and I will conquer and subjugate the world.

[david petley]

I think I will stick to the President’s Commission on Campus Unrest Conclusions regarding Kent State University 1970

The Guard fired amidst great turmoil and confusion, engendered in part by their own activities. But the guardsmen should not have been able to kill so easily in the first place. The general issuance of loaded weapons to law enforcement officers engaged in controlling disorders is never justified except in the case of armed resistance that trained sniper teams are unable to handle. This was not the case at Kent State, yet each guardsman carried a loaded M-l rifle.

[david petley]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ty_in_1970.jpg

[david petley]

link

These are purportedly quotes from the 1970 FBI report (reported by someone who was there, and got shot). He says - below are exact, basically truthful, US Justice Department conclusions as indicated within quotation marks:

"...Most persons estimate that about 200-300 students were gathered around the Victory Bell on the commons with another 1,000 or so students gathered on the hill directly behind them."

"...the crowd apparently was initially peaceful and relatively quiet."

"...96 men of Companies A and C, 145th Infantry and of Troop G, 107th Armored Cavalry were ordered to advance. Bayonets were fixed and their weapons were "locked and loaded", with one round in the chamber...all wore gas masks. Some carried .45 pistols, most carried M-1 rifles, and a few carried shotguns loaded with 7 1/2 birdshot and double-ought buckshot."

"...the combination of the advancing troops and the teargas forced the students to retreat."

"...fifty-three members of Company A, 18 members of Troop G and two members of Company C, all commanded by General Canterbury and Lt. Col. Fassinger moved...pursuing the main body of students who retreated..."

"...one group of students retreated to a paved parking lot south of Prentice Hall..."

"...the Guard then moved...onto the field where it took up a position..."

"...some of the students...then returned to within range of the Guard and began to pelt them with objects..."

"...four Guardsmen claim they were hit with rocks at this time..."

"...some rocks were thrown back at the students by the Guard."

"...just prior to the time the Guard left its position on the practice field, members of Troop G were ordered to kneel and aim their weapons at the students in the parking lot south of Prentice Hall. They did so, but did not fire."

"...the Guard was then ordered to regroup and move back up the hill past Taylor Hall."

"...when the Guard reached the crest of Blanket Hill by the southeast corner of Taylor Hall at about 12:25pm, they faced the students following them and fired their weapons. Four students were killed and nine were wounded."

"...the few moments immediately prior to the shootings are shrouded in confusion and highly conflicting statements. Many Guardsmen claim that they felt their lives were in danger from the students for a variety of reasons...because they were 'surrounded'...because a sniper fired at them...stones...the students 'advanced upon them in a threatening manner'..."

"...we [the FBI] have some reason to believe that the claim by the National Guard that their lives were endangered by the students was fabricated subsequent to the event..."

"...[a Guardsman] admitted that his life was not in danger and that he fired indiscriminantly into the crowd. He further stated that the Guardsmen had gotten together after the shooting and decided to fabricate the story that they were in danger of serious bodily harm or death from the students...the guys have been saying that we got to get together and stick to the same story, that it was our lives or them, a matter of survival. I told them I would tell the truth and couldn't get in trouble that way."

"...also, a chaplain of Troop G spoke with many members of the National Guard and stated that they were unable to explain to him why they fired their weapons."

"...available photographs indicate that the nearest student was 60 feet away" [at time of shootings].

"...no verbal warning was given to the students immediately prior to the time the Guardsmen fired."

"...one Guardsman, Sgt. McManus, stated that after the firing began, he gave an order to 'fire over their heads'".

"...the Guardsmen were not surrounded...they could easily have continued going in the direction in which they had been going."

"...no Guardsman claims he was hit with rocks immediately prior to the firing..."

"...only one Guardsman, Lawrence Shafer, was injured on May 4, 1970, seriously enough to require any kind of medical treatment. He admits his injury was received some 10 to 15 minutes before the fatal volley was fired."

"...there was no sniper."

"...the great majority of Guards do not state that they were under sniper fire and many specifically state that the first shots came from the National Guardsmen."

"...the FBI has conducted an extensive search and has found nothing to indicate that any person other than a Guardsman fired a weapon."

"...at the time of the shooting, the National Guard clearly did not believe that they were being fired upon."

"...in addition, no Guardsman claims he fired at a sniper or even that he fired in the direction from which he believed the sniper shot."

"...a minimum of 54 shots were fired by a minimum of 29 of the 78 members of the National Guard at Taylor Hall in the space of approximately 13 seconds."

"...seven members of Troop G admit firing their weapons, but claim they did not fire at the students. Five persons interviewed in Troop G, the group of Guardsmen closest to Taylor Hall, admit firing a total of eight shots into the crowd or at a specific student."

"...some Guardsmen had to be physically restrained from continuing to fire their weapons."

"...Sergeant Richard Love of Company C...asserted he 'could not believe' that the others were shooting into the crowd so he lowered his weapon."

"...when the firing began, many students began running; others hit the ground."

"...in all, only two [student victims] were shot from the front. Seven students were shot from the side and four were shot from the rear."

"...of the 13 students shot, none, so far as we know, were associated with either the disruption in Kent on Friday night, May 1, 1970, or the burning of the ROTC building on Saturday, May 2, 1970."

...so we can bandy about "proof" and "truth" until we all get sick of it.

I prefer to just accept that you live in a weird reverso world.


For anyone who wants to check the validity of the excerpts above, here is a link to PDF files of the report - http://foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/kentstat.htm

[Loyal Rogue]

Here's an interesting one with evidence released just last month indicating that shots may have been fired at the guardsmen first:

[insert gigantic heap of 100% pure steaming BS here]

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...illings/print/

Lot's of eye-witness testimony in there for LR to sink his teeth into.

You stated the words "evidence" and "eyewitness testimony" but I could find neither.
I have searched and searched but could not find any document, source, or eyewitness testimony to support any of the claims in that story.
Did you find any source or support before posting it?

One thing leaps out from Rosen's claims that has been completely and irrefutably proven to be a lie... the idea that their were any shots fired at the guard first.
There are recordings of that day.
Those recordings were heard during the trials.
There were absolutely no sounds of gunfire before the guard started shooting.
If there had been anything that even remotely sounded like a gunshot before the guards started executing students then the first we learned of it would certainly not be 40 years later by some radical rightwing revisionist author trying to push his propaganda book praising the Nixon administration.

If the best source you can find to support your position is an unsourced and unverified blogpost by an uncredible revisionist serial-liar then maybe you should reconsider your position?

[FlashLackey]

Is this the same Washington Times owned by Reverend Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church?

Is this the same logical fallacy used by people confronted with evidence that conflicts with their position?

I think I will stick to the President’s Commission on Campus Unrest Conclusions regarding Kent State University 1970

Wait a minute. Just yesterday you guys were crowing that I was choosing one account over another. Why are you choosing that account and not the court decisions or other accounts with contradicting perspectives?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ty_in_1970.jpg

Thank you for the map. Interesting how it says/shows that the troops went back up the hill and the students followed. Sounds like the definition of advancing on to me.

These are purportedly quotes from the 1970 FBI report (reported by someone who was there, and got shot). He says - below are exact, basically truthful, US Justice Department conclusions as indicated within quotation marks:

...

I prefer to just accept that you live in a weird reverso world.

Is that blog post supposed to be helpful? The guy simply went through and cherry picked statements from the report that support his version of events.

You can go the personal insult route all you want. The fact will remain that you're choosing to believe one side of events in the face of a mountain of contradicting testimony and fact.

You stated the words "evidence" and "eyewitness testimony" but I could find neither.
I have searched and searched but could not find any document, source, or eyewitness testimony to support any of the claims in that story.
Did you find any source or support before posting it?

There's no need for me to find additional sources or support to post it. If you claim that he is lying, the burden is on you to demonstrate it. Considering that the article was published two days ago, it's not surprising that there isn't much else written about any new documents yet.

In any event, evidence is not always proof. The eye-witness accounts in FBI documents are evidence but they could have been mistaken or been lying themselves. Just like your eye-witness accounts are evidence but could be mistaken or lying.

One thing leaps out from Rosen's claims that has been completely and irrefutably proven to be a lie... the idea that their were any shots fired at the guard first.
There are recordings of that day.
Those recordings were heard during the trials.
There were absolutely no sounds of gunfire before the guard started shooting.

Where and how has that been proven?

If there were shots fired at the guard first, they could have been thought to be shots fired by the guard in a recording. They may not have been as loud and discernable amongst other noise compared to the M1s.

And these were not presented as "Rosen's claims." According to Rosen, they were eye-witness accounts available in FBI documents.

[david petley]

you really think I'm personally insulting you by telling you I think you must come from a place where we can both read the same document, and get reverse results?

just seems like more reverso world thinking.

bah, go back to your Washington Times.

(...thats about one of the worst insults I have typed at you yet)

[Loyal Rogue]

There's no need for me to find additional sources or support to post it. If you claim that he is lying, the burden is on you to demonstrate it. Considering that the article was published two days ago, it's not surprising that there isn't much else written about any new documents yet.

They wouldn't be new documents.
He says he saw them after they were declassified while he was researching for a book that has already been written, published, and sold on Amazon.
That means they have been declassified and public for a long time now.
He just decided to make the claim on the anniversary of Kent State to promote his book.

So now your bar for proof has been lowered to the point of any wild claim with no documentation or supporting evidence?

As I said, you have reached the point of zero credibility... a drowning man clutching at straws...

[FlashLackey]

They wouldn't be new documents.
He says he saw them after they were declassified while he was researching for a book that has already been written, published, and sold on Amazon.
That means they have been declassified and public for a long time now.
He just decided to make the claim on the anniversary of Kent State to promote his book.

Just because they were declassified doesn't mean that they were disclosed, published or made known to the public. To clarify, "new documents to us."

Previously undisclosed FBI documents suggest that the Kent State antiwar protests were more meticulously planned than originally thought and that one or more gunshots may have been fired at embattled Ohio National Guardsmen before their killings of four students and woundings of at least nine others on that searing day in May 1970.

As the nation marks the 40th anniversary of the Kent State antiwar protests Tuesday, a review of hundreds of previously unpublished investigative reports sheds a new — and very different — light on the tragic episode.

So now your bar for proof has been lowered to the point of any wild claim with no documentation or supporting evidence?

Rosen's article is just as supported as your claims that the guardsmen's bruises and contusions were caused by "gravel" or that the protesters weren't bearing down on the guard.

As I said, you have reached the point of zero credibility... a drowning man clutching at straws...

My position about this subject never relied on protesters (or FBI agent?) shooting at the guard. Though, I think it's an important thing to investigate and consider.

Your trouble seems to be this:

Guardsmen disbursing crowd and defending themselves = legal
Not disbursing and attacking guardsmen = illegal

[Loyal Rogue]

Rosen's article...

Isn't even worth addressing until there is at least one shred of evidence to prove that he didn't just make it up... especially considering he works for a propaganda organization that successfully fought and won in court their "first amendment right" to lie about and distort news stories.
Please link to the source documents and I will retract my statement, otherwise accept the fact that your position is going to be taken about as seriously as Bigfoot, Unicorns, or creationism.

Your trouble seems to be this:

Guardsmen disbursing crowd and defending themselves = legal
Not disbursing and attacking guardsmen = illegal

Wrong.

You completely misunderstand the point.

I have no problem with them disbursing a crowd (which they were) or defending themselves (which they weren't).

My trouble is National Guardsmen executing innocent American students on an American college campus without cause or justification.

We do not live in some third world dictatorship.
Those breaking the law should have been arrested and tried in a court of law, not executed in the street.

[FlashLackey]

Please link to the source documents and I will retract my statement, otherwise accept the fact that your position is going to be taken about as seriously as Bigfoot, Unicorns, or creationism.

Please link to the source documents that prove that the eye-witness accounts you cite are not just made up. Otherwise, I'll expect you to be consistent by putting it in the unicorn and magic bruising gravel pile.

My trouble is National Guardsmen executing innocent American students on an American college campus without cause or justification.

The issue was presented before multiple courts along with all of the evidence both sides felt valid in the case. Last time I checked, executions are illegal. Our courts found that the Guardsmen did nothing illegal. You have no case.

We do not live in some third world dictatorship.
Those breaking the law should have been arrested and tried in a court of law, not executed in the street.

I agree. The protesters that committed violence toward the Guardsmen should be held responsible for the deaths resulting from the Guardsmen defending themselves.

If a drunk driver rams a car off the road and it hits and injures pedestrians, the drunk driver is held responsible since their illegal acts caused the damage. You're trying to argue that the driver of the car that was rammed off the road should be charged with murder.

[david petley]

I guess if we accept your version of facts, then we need to accept that pretty much half of that troop of well-trained soldiers, armed with high-powered weapons, were so scared of imminent injury that they did not wait for a command from their commanding officers, but instead turned and blindly fired into a crowd without specific targets.

k. accepted.


but take a look at this again -
http://alancanfora.com/themes/alancanfora/mi2.jpg

...just look at the soldiers who are not kneeling with weapons aimed. Read and study their body language. Are they fearful of their lives?

They don't look in fear of imminent injury to me. So it seems that some were so fearful that they disobeyed any previous command, while the majority were not fearful at all, and just stood around watching. Weird how members of a group of soldiers can have such a different response to what they perceive as threatening their lives.

[Loyal Rogue]

Please link to the source documents that prove that the eye-witness accounts you cite are not just made up. Otherwise, I'll expect you to be consistent by putting it in the unicorn and magic bruising gravel pile.

I did provide links.
You can not only read the transcripts, but listen to the interviews with the people who were actually there and witnessed it, and were shot and paralyzed.

DP also provided detailed links to the FBI's own files.
Files that showed that some of the guardsmen admitted that they were not in danger, did not fear for their lives, and decided to fabricate the story afterwards as a legal defense.

You on the otherhand provide an unsourced, unverifiable, fabricated story by a FOX News hack trying to push a book... and you say I have no case?!?
I have to agree with David that you truly are in reverso/bizarro world.

Last time I checked, executions are illegal. Our courts found that the Guardsmen did nothing illegal. You have no case.

Last time I checked, waterboarding was a warcrime, and our country tried, convicted, and hung the Japanese that used it against our soldiers.
However, the Bush/Cheney gang got off scotfree.
Last time I checked, murder was a crime, yet OJ is hanging out on the golfcourse instead of deathrow.

The fact that a court makes a bad decision based on false testimony has no bearing on whether there is a case or not.

If a drunk driver rams a car off the road and it hits and injures pedestrians, the drunk driver is held responsible since their illegal acts caused the damage. You're trying to argue that the driver of the car that was rammed off the road should be charged with murder.

No I'm not.
We are not discussing a drunk driver.
We are discussing guardsmen firing indiscriminately at a campus filled with students out of frustration, not personal danger, executing innocent American students on American soil without reason or justification.