Kent State Honors Victims of Shootings

Memorials were dedicated Wednesday in a Kent State University parking lot where four Vietnam War protesters were killed by National Guardsmen in 1970, an event that infuriated members of the antiwar movement.

“This milestone commemoration will be and should be cause for people around the world to inquire, to learn, to reflect, to wonder why the world is still plagued by hate, intolerance and violence,” university President Carol A. Cartwright said.

Students last year asked the school to permanently mark the spaces at the dormitory parking lot where Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer and William Schroeder were shot and killed on May 4, 1970. Nine others were wounded.

“It’s not easy,” said Doris Krause, mother of Allison.

She pointed to the hill hundreds of feet away where the Guardsmen fired on the students.

“Do you think she was a threat to them? I don’t think so. . . . People always say the kids rioted. I think the National Guard rioted,” she said.

For 29 years, the spots where the students fell continued to be used for parking. Now they are marked off with granite borders, each space surrounded by waist-high lamp posts. Each has a corner triangle with the name of a slain student and the date of the shooting.

The lamps will shine at night, except for each May 3, when an annual overnight candlelight vigil is held. Cars can continue to park on the rest of the lot.

The shootings happened two days after the Guard was sent to Kent State following student protests and the burning of the campus Army ROTC building.

The guardsmen first used tear gas to disperse taunting, rock-throwing students. About midday, Guardsmen fired at least 61 shots in a 13-second burst. Scheuer was walking to a class when she was killed.

Former Gov. James A. Rhodes, the state and guardsmen in 1978 settled a lawsuit filed by wounded students and the parents of the dead. The state agreed to pay $675,000 and several guardsmen expressed their regret.

Other reminders of the shootings on campus include a sculpture marked by Guard gunfire. A granite plaza stands as a memorial, and 51,175 daffodils have been planted in honor of the nation’s Vietnam War dead.