Obama Officials Refuse to Investigate New Evidence in National Guard 1970 Kent State Shootings

This Can't Be Happening
Linn Washington Jr.

Three days after President Barack Obama visited Ground Zero in New York City on May 5th with his message of "justice being done" with the slaying of terrorist Osama bin Laden, disturbing news broke about this administration's blocking of a quest for justice in the infamous May 1970 killing of four Kent State students.

Those four students fell in a barrage of gunfire on May 4, 1970 by Ohio National Guardsmen who opened fire during a peaceful protest against the Vietnam War on Kent State’s campus. That lethal fusillade of 67 shots during a 13-second period also wounded nine others, some seriously.

That blocking action by Obama officials includes an apparent unwillingness to investigate new evidence providing damning insights about that shooting orgy forty years ago, which heightened criticism about U.S. foreign policy in Vietnam and about the abuse of domestic political dissidents.
The inaction on this case comes as opposition grows to Obama’s escalation of the unpopular war in Afghanistan and its expansion into Pakistan.

Ongoing U.S drone attacks inside Pakistan, seen by Pakistan as a violation of its sovereignty, have provoked outrage throughout that country. The country's parliament recently passed a resolution calling for an end of drone attacks and a “review of the country’s relationship with the U.S.” The U.S., according to CNN’s Pakistan bureau, unleashed at least four drone attacks since the raid that killed bin Laden. It was just one of two dozen such attacks inside Pakistan this year alone.

One of those students injured during the Kent State shooting, Alan Canfora, met with U.S. Justice Department officials last Fall requesting a new federal investigation based on an analysis of an audio tape conducted early last year which revealed what two forensic audio experts say is a military-style order to open fire on student protesters.

Evidence of an order to open fire contradicts Guard commanders who have consistently maintained that no such order was ever given to troops who were said to have spontaneously unleashed their gunfire in reaction to alleged sniper fire.

Analysis of the audio tape, which was recorded on May 4, 1970 also uncovered an altercation and four pistol shots prior to the Guard gunfire.

Those gunshots are believed to have been fired by a then Kent State student frequently referenced since that incident as an FBI informant, who was involved in the altercation. The alleged informant maintains he fired his pistol after being attacked by another student.

During that late 1960s and early 1970s, the FBI was involved in COINTELPRO, secret and blatantly illegal campaign to disrupt the anti-Vietnam War movement as well as the Civil Rights and Black Power movements, which involved not just the FBI, but also the CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency and other government units, as well as Nixon's own secret and illegal "Plumbers unit" inside the White House.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper, which commissioned the audio analysis by the two forensic experts, reported on May 8th that eight months after that Fall 2010 meeting between Canfora, his legal advisors and federal officials, “a seeming dearth of paperwork documenting” any Justice Department review of the new audio evidence “has raised some doubts about the Justice Department’s level of interest.”

That Plain Dealer account cites a Freedom of Information Act request by an author of a book on the 1970 Kent State massacre which confirms that “Justice Department officials have produced no reports, memos, legal analyses or other documents concerning the new audio tape evidence.”

Revelations from Kent State audio tape prompt congressional inquiry

The Plain Dealer

CLEVELAND, Ohio — U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich is launching a congressional inquiry into an altercation and apparent pistol fire that occurred about 70 seconds before Ohio National Guardsmen shot students and antiwar protesters on May 4, 1970.

The violent clash and four shots from a .38-caliber revolver were captured by a student's tape recorder, placed in a dormitory window. The sounds of the altercation recently were discovered by Stuart Allen, a forensic audio expert who analyzed the 40-year-old tape at The Plain Dealer's request. The newspaper reported Allen's findings Friday.

Kucinich, who chairs a House sub-committee with oversight of the FBI and Justice Department, said the paper's account prompted his inquiry.

"Kent State had such a grave effect on this nation, we owe it to the American people to have a thorough inquiry," he said in an interview. "This story about new evidence makes it mandatory that we gather information and ask questions.

In a letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller, Kucinich asked the bureau to produce documents that might shed light on its relationship with, and knowledge of, a Kent State student named Terry Norman.

Norman's actions on May 4, 1970, are the object of much speculation and dispute, and some people contend Norman may have triggered the Guard to fire.

Some details of the altercation on the tape match elements of a scuffle the pistol-waving Norman was involved in, although he insisted it took place after the Guard's gun volley, not before, as the recording indicates. Norman also told investigators he did not fire his weapon.

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KSU News Service Terry Norman, wearing his gas masks, takes photos on the Kent State campus May 4, 1970.

Norman was on campus the day of the protests, wearing a gas mask and and a .38-caliber pistol for protection. He was photographing demonstrators and said he regularly sold the photos to the FBI and the Kent State police department.

Some witnesses claim they saw Norman fighting with several students and waving or pointing his gun, although no one reported seeing him shoot. Accounts differ on whether the confrontation happened before or after the Guard gunfire.

TV footage shortly after the shooting shows Norman running toward a cluster of Guardsmen and police, pursued by a man who yells that Norman has a gun and has shot someone. The TV film shows an emotional Norman hand his pistol to a Kent State patrolman and describe an assault by protesters.

The TV reporter and sound engineer say they saw a Kent State detective open the pistol's cylinder and heard him exclaim off-camera that it had been fired four times. Officers' written statements contended it was fully loaded and unfired.

An FBI ballistics test reportedly determined the gun had been fired since its last cleaning, but could not pinpoint when.

Kucinich, a Democrat whose district includes Cleveland, has asked the FBI to provide any employment and payment records involving Norman, the results of any ballistics tests of his pistol, and any evidence that might indicate the bureau helped him get a job.

Several months after the Kent State shootings, Norman began working for the Washington, D.C., police department as a narcotics agent. His precise whereabouts today are not known.

FBI spokesman Paul Bresson said late Friday the bureau would review Kucinich's request and "respond accordingly."

Kucinich said he will ask the sub-committee's attorneys to locate and interview Norman, and that he may be asked to testify if there are congressional hearings. "What we find [from the FBI] may determine whether we go forward with a hearing," Kucinich said.

The audio tape also contains what Allen and fellow forensic acoustics expert Tom Owen believe is a command ordering the Guardsmen to prepare to fire.

A Plain Dealer report on that discovery in May prompted wounded Kent State student Alan Canfora to request that the Justice Department re-investigate the shootings.

A spokeswoman for the Justice Department's civil rights division said by email Friday that the division is "currently reviewing" that request.

Terry Gilbert, a Cleveland attorney who is advising Canfora, said their primary interest is the apparent order for the Guard to fire, but that the new revelations about the confrontation and pistol shots "add an interesting dimension because of the role the FBI might have played in the chain of events."

"Now, more than ever, we need to get to the bottom of it," said Gilbert, who hopes to meet with the head of the Justice Department's civil rights division, Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez, when Perez speaks at the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law next Tuesday.

Laurel Krause, whose sister Allison was one of four students killed by the Guard gunfire on May 4, also supports a new review examining all aspects of the case.

"Let's put together all of the pieces of the puzzle," said Krause, who will take part in a live, webcast "Kent State Truth Tribunal" in New York this weekend. "I think all the right things are going to happen, for once. There have been a lot of wrongs. It's time."