Dozens of Kent State Students Arrested After Block Party Spirals Into a Riot

FoxNews ^ | Sunday, April 26, 2009

[Joiseydude]

COLUMBUS, Ohio — An end-of-year college block party spiraled out of control as police fired pellets and used pepper spray to break up hundreds of rioting students who sparked a string of street fires at Kent State University.

Video posted on the Internet shows students hurling furniture and street signs into the flames on Saturday night as a police commando team in riot gear converged on the crowd. Kent police said the party grew violent after one reveler was arrested and students began pelting officers with bottles, bricks and rocks.

[JimC214]

I wonder if this Nimrod would like a wood shampoo from said officer he wishes was hurt.

[LadyBuzz]

It’s actually always been Kent State University (KSU).

[csmusaret]

Glad you told me. I would have bet money they changed it years ago.

[LadyBuzz]

It didn’t - Ohio State is in Columbus, OH

[Fu-fu2]

As a college student at the time, I still remember our school being shut down and all of us were sent home early with the threat of more riots. Carried the record of “no grades given” for that quarter on my college transcripts my entire adult life. At the time, we were angered about the kids being killed. As an adult, I realized that the “troops” were kids too, put into a very difficult situation. It was just a tragedy.....

[LadyBuzz]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings

http://people.cohums.ohio-state.edu/grimsley1/warchild/kent.htm

[meyer]

I remember some casual conversations around our C ration meals around that time. Since most of the RPG and AK rounds being fired at us were being trekked through Cambodia our attitude was pretty much, “F*$K em.”

Your service is greatly appreciated - more now than it was at the time. I was 14 or 15 when they ended the draft. Had it pounded into my head by our liberal teachers that Vietnam was a lost cause. At the time, I believed them.

In the hindsight that I gained through the 1980's and later, I learned that these particular teachers were quite wrong. Frankly, and I still love my brother dearly despite him being a tree-hugging liberal to this day, my brother was wrong as well. I just didn't know it yet.

I took a very interesting class at Baldwin-Wallace college in 1998 or 1999 - "Vietnam - Causes and Consequences" taught by Dr. L. A. Barone. It was excellent, and it gave me a little more understanding of the war from beginning to end. Obviously, I never got the feeling that I was in a combat situation, but I got an excellent overview of the war from the French losses in Bein Mein Phu (sp?) through the final withdrawel of US troops in 73 to the fall of Saigon in 75.

I have worked with, and am friends with many men who were soldiers, marines, or other military involved in the Vietnam War. I learned a great deal from them, and I hold that knowledge almost as dearly as those friendships.

I had the opportunity to visit the travelling Vietnam Memorial Wall last summer in Sevierville, Tennessee. It was quite an experience. I had never seen the "real" wall in Washington so I didn't really know what to expect.

I arrived at the location very early in the morning, before any visitors were there (I was photographing the wall for a friend that volunteered to help with the exhibition). Before I even pulled out the camera equipment, I walked out to the center of the wall. I started looking at the names - the names of patriots that left their homes at a young age, never to return. The names of people that left behind friends, families, children, and parents. I was overcome for a few minutes as all of that sunk in - I felt it. I can't describe it - I just felt it.

Thank you for your service!

[Arrowhead1952]

I was a freshman at Kent in 1970

That was shortly before I joined the military, and that was one of the "training" sessions we had on a weekly basis. What to do when, where, and how. The worst thing was "when does the military open fire on unarmed civilians" from my point of view.

[Fu-fu2]

Interesting links. I also knew people who were at the 1968 Democrat convention in Chicago. Protestors and police.....The cops I talked to about it later said they were the same age as the protestors, that they had things like bricks and feces hurled at them and reacted. Seems to have been a pattern at the time. We were all the same age, but on all different sides of the issues. A crazy time....

[gimmebackmyconstitution]

In 1970, the Kent State protesters sliced the fire fighter's hoses as they tried to put out the ROTC recruiting building and also hurled objects and jeered at them.
On April 26 2009, they hurled bricks, bottles and debris at the fire fighters who responded to the fires started by Kent State rioters. As a fire fighter, I am extremely disturbed by this behavior. I remember when the Rodney King riots took place around the country. Same problems for us. Janet Napolitano has the nerve to label law abiding citizens trying to protect their lives and property from lawless thugs (college) students or not)as potential terrorists. She needs to resign, and the president of Kent State owes an apology to the nation, the police & the fire fighters for allowing this to happen. Kent town council should pass a law prohibiting alcohol within the town limits.

[Joe 6-pack]

I’m surprised CNN has yet to refer to this as a tea party.

[Repeal The 17th]

I was a college student who was also in the national guard.
Crazy times, indeed, they were.

[Mark was here]

Yep, the buildings just lit themselves on fire. Spontaneous combustion as it were. You can watch someone torch buildings, putting more lives and property at stake, and giggle like a school girl, if that is your desire.

People attacking the Guard, people burning buildings are “Students”, like Rodney King was a “motorist”. When they are on the offense and active participants they are no longer mere students, but rioters.

My point is if you missed it was that the Guard troops were all ready on the edge, because of the Teamsters, and those who want to criticize them, are wrong.

[LadyBuzz]

I was a very young naive but conservative “co-ed” in 1970 - the campus atmosphere seemed to change right after Christmas break (along with many other colleges in OH by the way). I was in the dining hall (between classes that day) when all hell broke loose.........

[LadyBuzz]

the campus & small town had already been infiltrated with SDS types...... it just got so ugly so fast ...but actually few REAL students were involved ..... my fiance at the time was in the ROTC program ....

[Eva]

The president of Kent needs to apologize and then resign. Maybe they need to close the school and start over in September.

[Just another Joe]

Ahhh, those 'yutes'.

To be young and full of p*ss and vinegar. </sarc>

[Fu-fu2]

Yes, there were a few “students” who nobody knew (came in from outside somewhere) who led the protests on our campus. Alot of students would show up, but just stand around and watch out of curiosity. The campus protest movement was definitely fueled from outside forces, not some spontaneous event, IMO.

[yazoo]

Thank you for you kind comments. The interesting thing is that when I was in Vietnam I don’t recall ever getting into a conversation about whether the was was wrong or not. I doubt most of us ever spent a lot of time thinking about it one way or another. I was drafted and the idea of trying to get out of it or get into some branch that would keep me out of Vietnam never crossed my mind. In fact, my thought was “in for a pound, in for a dollar,” so I volunteered for the infantry so could experience what war was like. I was not after glory or heroics but just felt it was an opportunity few get.

It wasn’t till I got home and went to college on the Gi bill that I took a course in Vietnam and read some books that I really understood what it was about. In fact, we won the war and it was only the lack of air support for the South Vietnamese army in 1975 that led to our defeat. I do believe we fought it badly and the fact we didn’t mine harbors or invade North Vietnam was a mistake, and that going into any war without a strategy for victory clearly laid out is a mistake. It was one we didn’t make in the first Iraq war.

[antidemoncrat]

Yes, but the riot was at Kent State which is in Kent Ohio.