Transcription: Kent shootings leave four dead
KENT, Ohio (AP) -Four students in a crowd pelting National Guardsmen with bricks and rocks were shot to death at Kent State University Monday when the troops opened fire during an anti•war demonstration. Two of the dead were coeds.
Adj. Gen. S. T. Del Corso said troops began firing semiautomatic rifles after a rooftop sniper had shot at them.
The dead were identified as Jeffrey G. Miller, 20, Plainview, N.Y..; Allison Krause, 19, of Pittsburgh, Pa.; Sandy Lee Scheuer, 20, Youngstown, Ohio; and William Schroeder, 19, of Lorain all enrolled at Kent State.
Four other students were critically wounded, and eight other persons, including two guardsmen, were taken to hospitals. One of the guardsmen was treated for exhaustion and the other for shock.
The campus and the town of Kent were sealed off after the shootings, and school officials ordered the faculty, staff and 19,000 students to leave.
A spokesman said about 300 foreign students and staff remained on campus Monday night.
Patrols of armed troops and state police roamed the campus and blocked all entrances.
Buses took the students to public transportation facilities in nearby Akron and Cleveland.
Akron State University students were organizing a rally for downtown Akron Monday night to protest the shooting.
Gov. James A. Rhodes called for FBI help in investigating the disorders.
In Washington, President Nixon issued this statement:
“This should remind us all once again that when dissent turns to violence it invites tragedy.
“It is my hope that this tragic and t unfortunate incident will strengthen the determination of all the nation’s campuses, administrators, faculty and students alike. to stand firmly for the right which exists in this country of 1 peaceful dissent and just as strongly g against the resort to violence as a means of expression.”
The shooting came after a force of 100 guardsmen. their supply of tear gas exhausted, were surrounded by about 400 demonstrators. The troops had followed the demonstrators from a rally on Kent State’s Commons area near the football practice field.
Guard spokesmen estimated that 900 to 1,000 persons had been involved in the demonstration at the Commons.
Gene Williams, 21, a junior and a member of the student newspaper staff, said he was seeking refuge in a building when he saw the troops turn “in unison, as if responding to a command,” and fire into the crowd.
“Bullets ricocheted off the walls beside us and students fell to the ground to avoid them,” Williams• said in a copyrighted story in the Dayton Journal-Herald.
“A coed fell 15 feet in front of the men into the arms of a male student. A bullet had gone into her neck and lodged there.”
He said he saw another youth shot in the chest.
“I saw no snipers nor did I hear any shots until the line of troops turned in unison and opened fire,” Williams said.
Del Corso, the adjutant general, said guardsmen were forced to open fire.
“A lot of people felt their lives were in danger,” said Brig. Gen. Robert Canterbury, who was on the scene,’ “which in fact was the case and the military man always has the option to fire if he feels his life is in danger.” '
He has the right to protect himself.”
Del Corso said tear gas was used several times in attempt to disperse the crowd.
“I don’t know where the first shot was from,” said Gen. Canterbury. He said he was with guardsmen but heard no order to fire.
“They started pelting everyone with bullets,” said Mary Hagan, a student who witnessed the shooting. She said some students fell and others remained standing. They shouted the shots were blanks,” she said.
