Kent State Shooting

On May 4, 1970, four students were killed and nine were wounded at Kent State University after some Ohio National Guard members fired 67 rounds in 13 seconds (wikipedia). One of the students wounded was permanently paralyzed. 

The shooting opened after students began protesting the American invasion of Cambodia. But not every person who was shot was protesting, some of them were just walking by, this included two of the students who were shot and killed. These students weren't even forcing their way into buildings or attempting to push through the guardsmen when they were shot. Wikipedia gave the distance that the students were from the guards when they were killed : Jeffery Glenn Miller; 20, 265 ft., shot through the mouth and killed instantly, Allison B. Krause 19, 343 ft, fatal chest wound, William Knox Schroeder; 19, 382 ft., fatal chest wound, Sandra Lee Scheuer; 20, 390 ft., fatal neck wound. They were all close to 20,000 feet away, unbelievable. Sandra and William were just trying to walk from their one class to another.  

Overall, the rally the students held was described as peaceful, no one was trashing anything on campus or lighting things on fire, they were voicing their opinions about the war and having the guardsmen on their campus. Apparently, the guards were asked on the campus by the city's mayor because threats had been made to downtown businesses and he thought local police would not be able to handle the "situation". Long story short, they were students having a peaceful demonstration within their full rights to voice their opinions and they were shot at for it. It's things like this that make me look back at the history of our "land of the free" in disgust. It makes us seem like a bunch of hypocrites. 

The photo above is the iconic Pulitzer prize-winning photo by John Paul Filo, who as a journalism student at Kent at the time of the shootings. It shows Mary Ann Vecchio screaming as she kneels by the body of wounded student Jeffrey Miller (wikipedia). You can see the true emotion and shock that she and the other students around had from the shootings. The image is haunting. It was taken just 39 years ago; I cannot imagine what that experience would have done to me, but the photograph alone gives me chills. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings

http://dept.kent.edu/sociology/lewis/lewihen.htm

LH