Talk:Kent State

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"curious musical trivia"

I'll be removing that soon if nobody objects. It doesn't really make sense to me. --"Shut up, Brx." 21:45, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps some more content

So, I read Derf Backderf's graphic novel about the shooting, and there are some details in the build-up to the incident that may be worth mentioning:

Tensions were incredibly high on the university and in the town. An altercation with the local police practically turned into a riot and prompted the mayor to call Governor Rhodes for help. The notorious "Six Hour War" at Ohio State had occurred less than a week before and fears of a repeat at Kent were high.

Rhodes had developed a fondness of throwing the Ohio National Guard at any problem that arose. From student demonstrations to worker strikes, he was more than willing to order a unit from the Guard to show up. He was also at this time seeking the Republican nomination for the upcoming election to the US Senate, a campaign that was not going well and had took a major blow after Rhodes' poor performance at a debate with Robert Taft Jr.. Rhodes saw the developing situation as a good way to score points for the primaries and was more than happy to send in the Guard.

Now here's the part that's really on mission. Rumors flowed out of control, with allegations of student activists hording weapons, stories of plots to poison water towers with LSD, and notions of the Weather Underground planning attacks and even having snipers stationed at dorm windows. When the Guard did show up, things went from bad to worse. The presence of armed troops on campus only angered activists more, the local ROTC building was burned to the ground and tear gas was fired at anyone standing at a window under the suspicion that they were the rumored Weather Underground snipers. National Guard troops wore gas masks to conceal their faces and placed electrical tape over their uniform nametags to avoid identification took to the campus to forcibly disperse students, clubbing and even bayoneting anyone who didn't comply.

A key figure in the whole mess was a student named Terry Norman. He was a law enforcement major who fancied himself as a kind of tough guy cop/detective, acting as police and FBI informant during COINTELPRO. He would show up to demonstrations, photographing protesters in the hopes that they would get arrested later. He also carried a gun. It's alleged that before the shooting, Norman had pulled his gun on protesters and had even fired it. If true, his little stunt may been what helped turned a bad situation into something worse.

I'm not sure how well I could add and cite all this for the article. Any thoughts? --Paul S (talk) 07:46, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

It's worth a try. Derf's book is a reasonable reference since it's researched and it has a lot of footnotes. I wouldn't call it a novel though; it's called a chronology elsewhere. I read Derf's memoir on Dahmer, which was quite good. I also did some background writing on the LSD-in-the-water-system rumors, which were fairly rampant at that time and not specific to Kent State (Psychedelic drug#Gaye Bykers on Acid). Bongolian (talk) 15:53, 29 July 2022 (UTC)