7 hurt at Kent St. in 1970 shooting want answers

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The Associated Press
Posted: Friday, May. 04, 2012

KENT, Ohio Seven people wounded by Ohio National Guard gunfire at Kent State University 42 years ago Friday are appealing for answers to lingering questions about the shooting, such as whether an order to fire was given.

The survivors are launching a campaign to persuade state and federal lawmakers and other officials to convene hearings to examine new evidence from the May 4, 1970, shootings ...

Dean Kahler, who was shot in the spine and paralyzed from the waist down, says it's important to get the truth out before it's too late ...

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/05/04/3218120/7-hurt-at-kent-st-in-1970-shooting.html

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1. ... In 2010, Alan Canfora, one of the wounded students and director of the nonprofit

May 4 Center, asked the Justice Department to review the enhanced recording, which was taken 250 feet from the guardsmen when they fired their shots in 1970 ...

Canfora, and other wounded students Dean Kahler, Thomas Grace and Joe Lewis, asked Holder on Thursday for a new probe, saying anyone involved in the shooting should be offered immunity to provide information. They asked any surviving guardsmen to come forward with information.

"I was an angry young man for a number of years," Canfora said. "We have to work within the system. I've learned a lot since we were younger. I believe they were ordered to shoot us."

Kahler, who has been paralyzed from the waist down since the shooting, told Reuters: "We want justice in a sense, to have the truth. It would be nice to know what actually happened ...

http://www.wina.com/pages/13032390.php?contentType=4&contentId=10543667

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2. ... In a news conference Thursday, the survivors said they are launching a campaign

to persuade state and federal lawmakers and other officials to convene hearings to examine new evidence from the May 4, 1970, shootings, which were a defining event of 20th-century America.

Four of the wounded former students were present at Thursday's briefing. Three others signed a consensus statement ...

The survivors' group, their attorneys and the May 4 Task Group, an organization of current KSU students, are backing a broad-based effort to root out more information about the shootings. It includes appeals to Congress, the Ohio legislature, Gov. John Kasich, Attorney General Mike DeWine and human-rights groups to initiate inquiries ...

"We're not going to courts first, filing lawsuits," said Paul Meyer, a Cleveland attorney who is advising the group. "We'd rather build up a groundswell of public opinion to support the effort to seek the truth and achieve some reconciliation. We think if elected officials are aware of the [new] evidence, they will be persuaded to take effective action. There are people who know things who have yet to tell their stories . . . and we are looking for them, too." ...

http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2012/05/may_4th_wounded_from_kent_stat.html

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3. Kent State Victim Remembers Shooting On Day Of Anniversary

Friday May 4, 2012 8:31 AM
UPDATED: Friday May 4, 2012 8:34 AM

KENT, Ohio - ... Sixty-seven shots rang out over a span of 13 seconds ...

Kahler had dropped to the ground before the shots rang out.

"When somebody turns deliberately and lowers there weapon in that particular stance you know they are ready to pull the trigger," Kahler said.

As Kahler dove to the ground that day, he never knew that they would be the last steps he would ever take. A bullet hit below his left shoulder damaging his spinal cord ...

http://www.onntv.com/content/stories/2012/05/04/story-onn-Kent-State-anniversary.html