The myth about shots being fired at the Guard has been disproven dozens of time. This aspect of the article is a LIE! ---- radtimes <[email protected]> wrote: > New light shed on Kent State killings > > http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/may/04/new-light-shed-on-kent-state-killings/?page=2 > > Shots fired at Guard, declassified files indicate > > May 4, 2010 > By James Rosen > > Now largely forgotten, the torching of the ROTC building was the true > precursor to the killings at Kent State because it triggered the > deployment of the National Guard to the fevered campus. > > That deployment climaxed in bloodshed on the afternoon of May 4, > 1970, with the guardsmen, clad in gas masks and confronted by angry, > rock-throwing students, firing their M-1 rifles 67 times in 13 > seconds, killing Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer and > William Knox Schroeder. > > A report submitted to Attorney General John Mitchell in June 1970 > stated "there was no sniper" who could have fired at the guardsmen > before the killings. > > Numerous witnesses corroborated this. > > A female freshman provided the FBI with a sworn statement that "there > was no shot before [the guardsmen's] volley, and there were no > warning shots fired." The Justice Department's internal review cited > statements by six guardsmen who "pointedly" told the FBI that their > lives were not in danger and that "it was not a shooting situation." > > 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." > > Separately, a female student told the FBI she "recalled hearing what > she thought was [the sound of] firecrackers and then a few seconds > later [she] heard noise that to her sounded like a machine gun going > off, but then later thought it may have been a volley of shots from > the Guard." > > Absent the declassification of the FBI's entire investigative file, > many questions remain unanswered including why the documents quoted > here were overlooked, or discounted, in the Justice Department's > official findings. > > At a minimum, the FBI documents strongly challenge the received > narrative that the rioting in downtown Kent was spontaneous and > unplanned, that the burning of the ROTC headquarters was similarly > impulsive and that the guardsmen's fatal shootings were explicable > only as unprovoked acts. > > The FBI files provide, in short, a hidden history of the killings at > Kent State. They show that the "four dead in Ohio" more properly > belong, in the grand sweep of history, to four days in May, an angry, > chaotic and violent interlude when a controversial foreign war came > home to American soil. > -- > > James Rosen, a Fox News correspondent, examined previously > undisclosed FBI files on the Kent State shootings while researching > his biography "The Strong Man: John Mitchell and the Secrets of Watergate." > > . > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Sixties-L" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/sixties-l?hl=en. >
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