The Commission issued its findings in a September 1970 report that concluded that the Ohio National Guard shootings on May 4, 1970, were unjustified. The report said:
Even if the guardsmen faced danger, it was not a danger that called for lethal force. The 61 shots by 28 guardsmen certainly cannot be justified. Apparently, no order to fire was given, and there was inadequate fire control discipline on Blanket Hill. The Kent State tragedy must mark the last time that, as a matter of course, loaded rifles are issued to guardsmen confronting student demonstrators.
In September 1970, twenty-four students and one faculty member were indicted on charges connected with the May 4 demonstration at the ROTC building fire three days before. These individuals, who had been identified from photographs, became known as the "Kent 25." Five cases, all related to the burning of the ROTC building, went to trial; one non-student defendant was convicted on one charge and two other non-students pleaded guilty. One other defendant was acquitted, and charges were dismissed against the last. In December 1971, all charges against the remaining twenty were dismissed for lack of evidence.[46][47]
Legal action[edit]
Eight of the guardsmen were indicted by a grand jury. The guardsmen claimed to have fired in self-defense, a claim that was generally accepted by the criminal justice system. In 1974 U.S. District Judge Frank Battisti dismissed charges against all eight on the basis that the prosecution's case was too weak to warrant a trial.[8]
Larry Shafer, a guardsman who said he fired during the shootings and was one of those charged, told the Kent-Ravenna Record-Courier newspaper in May 2007: "I never heard any command to fire. That's all I can say on that." Shafer—a Ravenna city councilman and former fire chief—went on to say, "That's not to say there may not have been, but with all the racket and noise, I don't know how anyone could have heard anything that day." Shafer also went on to say that "point" would not have been part of a proper command to open fire.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings
At the time of these shootings, I was a 12 year old kid listening to my grandfather declare about "those God Damned hippies" deserving it while watching my mother and aunt try and comfort my grandmother who was worrying about my uncle, a student at Kent State at the time. We were living about 14 miles north of Youngstown at the time. We even knew the mother of one of the girls that got shot that day. Those were different times with a completely different war as I saw it every day at school while classmates wore the MIA/POW bracelets. Every day I would grab the newspaper after getting off of the school bus and read about who got killed or is missing. Very different than the wars of today.
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