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| Four people were killed that day, two of whom were protesting and two simply walking to class. Victims: Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer and William Knox Schroeder. May 4th, 1970. |
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May 4 group still asking who gave order to shoot
Akron Beacon Journal
Fri April 30, 2010
Area: Cleveland, Akron (Canton)
It has been nearly 40 years and yet members of the May 4 Task Force are still looking for the truth behind the May 4, 1970, shooting at Kent State.
They are seeking answers as to why the Ohio National Guard opened fire on campus killing four students, Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, William Schroeder and Sandra Scheuer. Nine others were wounded.
''Who actually gave the verbal order to shoot?'' asked Al Canfora, one of the injured students, at a news conference Friday on the site of the campus shooting.
Waving a CD containing an audio recording from the day of the shooting, Canfora said, ''The actual command, 'Right here, get set, point, fire.' ''
This is not the first time Canfora has talked about the recording.
Canfora used Friday's media gathering as another opportunity to talk about the 291/2-minute recording reportedly made by then-KSU student Terry Strubbe.
Canfora said Strubbe left a microphone on the windowsill ledge in his dorm room and captured audio of the shooting on his tape recorder.
''The FBI had the information, but never revealed the verbal militaristic command,'' he said. ''It was not until 2007 when Yale University used digital technology to enhance the sound of the original analog cassette that we could hear the command.''
The sounds of the day, Canfora said, are chilling.
''It was a nightmarish experience,'' he said. ''It was a massacre. It was unwarranted and inexcusable. Sixty-seven shots fired into a crowd of unarmed students. That never should have happened in America.''
Canfora said he thinks there should be a new federal investigation into the shooting to determine once and for all who ordered the guardsmen to open fire.
''If we had this evidence in 1970 or 1975, there would have been convictions,'' he said.
But after all these years, Canfora said, it is truth May 4 Task Force members are seeking, rather than punishment or retribution.
''We just want the guardsmen to tell the truth, tell what they saw and what they did. Something made a dozen men simultaneously turn and shoot,'' Canfora said. ''The mothers of the four victims are still alive and they deserve to know what caused the death of their children.''
Student members of the May 4 Task Force, including Krista Napp, 21, and Nora Rodriquez, 19, on Friday applauded the university's plans to create a new May 4 Visitor's Center and walking tour.
But the pair said their organization is still upset that just a fraction of the original memorial built in 1990 was actually constructed.
In addition to constructing the memorial in its entirety, the students called on the administration to remove the remaining trees planted in 1971 in the direct line of the May 4, 1970, gunfire. One of the four trees was removed last week.
In the late 1970s, KSU officials ''promised to remove these four trees, which create the illusion the Ohio National Guard fired through foliage and could not aim at nor see their distant victims in the Prentice Hall parking lot . . . these trees should be uprooted and replanted elsewhere,'' Rodriquez said.
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