with snowballs, outnumbered like a mutha by a hostile mob, and attacked. Hardly what happened at Kent State.
"On March 5, 1770 at approximately 9:00 pm an angry crowd approached sentry Hugh White standing on guard outside of the Customs House. By this time the agitators have already been in another street brawl were ready for action. One of the leaders, Edward Garrick started insulting private White, saying among other things that his company commander was a cheat and did not pay him for a wig. In perhaps the most critical mistake of this evening, White allowed himself to get involved in the quarrel and struck Garrick in the face with the butt of a musket. From there the situation quickly escalated. Despite the reinforcements and the actions taken by captain Preston trying to control the crowd, the angry mob was getting out of control. The seven British solders tried to take White to safety but could not reach him and were forced to defend themselves. Some of the attackers were waving clubs and throwing stones. At some point somebody yelled “You sons of bitches to fire! You can’t kill us all! Fire! Whey don’t you fire? You dare not fire!”
In the next few minutes the violence reached its peak. One of the attackers threw a club at private Hugh Montgomery, knocking him off his feet. Rising, Montgomery fired a shot into the air. He was stricken again with a club and Montgomery had no choice but to point his gun at the attacker, Richard Palmes who quickly fled. At the same time another soldier Private Matthew Killroy pointed his musket at the other two attackers, Edward Langford and Samuel Gray. “God damn you, don’t fire!” Gray called out. Probably the anger and the fear of being beaten by a club like his fellow solder, private Killroy pulled the trigger mortally wounding Gray. More shots were fired and more people fell to the ground wounded or dead, leaving the aftermath of 5 civilian deaths."
http://www.bostonmassacre.net/british.htm"Before noon, students gathered on the Commons for the anti-war rally which had been planned since Friday. A campus policeman riding in a Guard vehicle told students through a bullhorn that their assembly was illegal, that everyone was ordered to disperse. Some students in front of Taylor Hall and in the Prentice Hall parking lot charged the right flank of the Guard. They began throwing stones, some shouting, "Kill the pigs. Stick the pigs." Guardsmen reacted by firing tear gas.
They marched toward the crowd. Each guardsman carried a loaded M-1 rifle. Twenty five men fired 55 shots from rifles, two fired shots from .45 caliber pistols, and one fired a single blast from a shotgun."
"Then a group of guardsmen moved in formation to the top of a small hill. Some of them turned in unison, aimed and fired. They could have just kept going over the hill. Most of the students were in a parking lot downhill, more than 100 yards away."
A standoff ensued. Students kept their distance, chanting slogans — "Pigs off campus!" — and hurling rocks and bottles, few of which reached their targets. Then the Guardsmen retraced their steps up the hill, heading back toward the commons.
The crowd had swelled to several thousand, including protest supporters, observers and bystanders. Many of them now relaxed; the confrontation seemed over.
"It was OK until they got up on that hill," Vecchio recalls.
Suddenly, about 12 Guardsmen turned 130 degrees, raised their rifles and fired. "I heard the shots," Vecchio says, "and kissed the ground."
In 12.53 seconds, 28 Guardsmen got off 61 to 67 shots. (Some fired into the ground or the air; 48 Guardsmen did not shoot at all, according to the FBI.)
Vecchio found Jeff Miller, whom she'd gotten to know over the past few days, bleeding to death. There was nothing she could do. She screamed, "Oh my God!"
Also killed: protester Allison Krause; Bill Schroeder, an ROTC student who'd been watching the protest and was shot in the back; and Sandy Scheuer, who was walking to class.
Nine students were wounded. One, Dean Kahler, was shot in the back as he lay on the ground. The bullet left him paralyzed for life. Another, Alan Canfora, ducked behind an oak tree as a bullet passed through his right wrist."
http://www.burr.kent.edu/archives/may4/afraid/afraid1.html
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