Audio Analysis Brings New Revelations From Kent State Shooting

a_nonamiss writes "The Cleveland Plain Dealer is reporting today on new forensic analysis by audio scientists Stuart Allen and Tom Owen on a recently discovered audio tape from the Kent State shootings. The analysis suggests that four shots from a .38-caliber pistol were fired 70 seconds before the National Guard opened fire on a crowd of student protesters, killing four and wounding nine others. The alleged shooter, student Terry Norman, was hired by the FBI to take photos of the protesters. It has been known for some time that he had a .38-caliber pistol on his person the day of the shootings, but he has always claimed that the gun was not fired during the protest, a claim that was backed up in sworn testimony from authorities at the time."

Comments

flowers to a gun fight

[dlt074]

hmm FBI employee shoots his weapon to get something started and then plausibly denys it. nothing to see here.

on that note. never take a flower to a gun fight. when an armed person(legal authority or otherwise) tells you to stop, leave, get out of his face, and you don't have a weapon. you leave, period. you don't just stay there thinking they are not going to shoot you because you are "peaceful". they don't know that and they probably don't care.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely. Obey authority. Always. Because they will kill you if you do not.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[Seumas]

Government agents infiltrate situations or causes to instigate and manufacture threats, violence, or confusion in order to promote or convince the rest of the country to condone action against said infiltrated group? Tell me it ain't so?

Also, in other news, the sky is blue.

It baffles me how people just accept the stories they are fed without ever questioning them. It is downright sickening to see how people just open their heads and let things just pour in, unchecked.

Next thing you know, someone is going to suggest that governments spread stories through the media outlets or back actual actions -- either of which promote suspicion of and urgency in dealing with foreign threats to justify taking action on a national level -- from sanctions to blockades and tariffs to military action against them....!

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[cosm]

Conservatives murder hippie protesters

It is this polarization between parties that results in nothing being accomplished in America. Blanket statements like that are A) False, unless you can confirm that everybody that landed a bullet was a conservative, B) Begging the questions, for them to be murderers renders them shooters, for them to be shooters renders them conservative, for them to be conservative renders them against hippie protesters, round and round we go.

How about just saying that the Man fucked up. Screw party affiliation. If we are always blaming left or right, we will always get screwed up the middle by both. Stop viewing the world through the R-D filter and start viewing it as us (people) vs them (people we elect). Oh wait.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[HiThere]

Or how about noticing that "left" and "right" are pretty much media inventions. To make politics easy to explain using sports metaphors. Yay for our team!

What this was, was people in power manipulating a situation to disadvantage people without power, and masses of people accepting the explanation, because they didn't have much choice, and anyway only one side was really heard. (Different sides in different places, but still only one side.)

It was after this that it coincidentally happened that all the major publishers started being acquired by major corporations...which wasn't a directly profitable action, publishing being relatively unprofitable. But which did mean that those publishers wouldn't print anything that the major corporations didn't approve of. (At least nothing they strongly disapproved of. The control was, and remains, indirect. The management chooses the editor who chooses what to publish.)
In this context it's worth noting that demonstrations now get minimal coverage in any media. This despite the fact that one would expect them to be more newsworthy as that occur less frequently.

Note that this is not a unanimous group. To call this a conspiracy is probably incorrect. It's merely that people in a position of power have certain interests in common that are not the same as the interests of people who are not in a position of power. And they tend to act to forward those interests.

Another thing that happened at around this time was that the political process was nominally loosened by allowing the easier formation of political parties while simultaneously centralized by removing the requirement that broadcasting stations allow equal amounts of partisan campaigning by all parties. This made money the central requirement for being heard. (It had already become a major requirement.)

Also note that in the US the election system (primarily, but not entirely, the means used to count the votes) is so structured that only two parties have a reasonable chance to win an election. There have been only a few times when an incumbent party became so weak that it essentially abdicated it's position to an alternate third party. Even Teddy Rooseveldt wasn't able to overcome this bias. I *think* that Instant Runoff would be quite superior, and I'm quite convinced that Condorcet voting would be superior. And, yes, it's true that it can be proven that no fair voting system can exist, but this doesn't mean that some aren't better than others. And the majority rule system is about the worst. (Not as bad as minority rule, of course.)

Re:Cause and Effect

[a_nonamiss]

Definitely a fair point. However, if someone starts waving a gun around and firing shots, that's a good way to whip up a crowd of angry people into a fury, where the guardsmen might have legitimately felt threatened. 70 seconds is probably too long for him to have been directly responsible, but just about the right amount of time to have been a crucial catalyst.

Re:Not a direct provocation, but...

[a_nonamiss]

I am far more bothered by the fact that a) Mr. Norman was on the payroll of the FBI at the time and b) authorities (may have) lied under oath about the fact that Mr. Norman discharged his weapon during the protest. This implies that the FBI was at least indirectly involved in the massacre and directly involved in the cover-up.

I'll give you that Mr. Norman probably didn't directly trigger the massacre, although shooting a gun in a crowd of angry people probably didn't contribute to happy peaceful feelings at the protest. However, the government at the time seems to have actively and knowingly participated in a cover-up. This bothers me a lot. It should bother everyone. A lot.

Re:Cause and Effect

[D'Sphitz]

But feeling threatened is no excuse to start picking off uninvolved, unarmed people hundreds of feet away at random. "Someone in the crowd may have a gun, so shoot them all to be safe"

Re:Should Have Shot Them All

[Anonymous Coward]

Should have shot all of the traitors.

Except where would Obama get his advisors?

if you think shooting "traitors", such as those college kids, is acceptable, then shouldn't you be shot now for your opposition to Obama?

nice logic!

Re:Cause and Effect

[mspohr]

Looks like the FBI fired first.

Re:Not a direct provocation, but...

[jedidiah]

Spend any time with the justice system and you will see this for yourself.

It's not just Hollywood nonsense. Cops actually act like this. It's probably not limited to American cops either.

Cops won't even make their lies terribly believable. They benefit greatly from the respect they get from most people.

Re:Cause and Effect

[Lord Ender]

At some point, the soldiers selected targets and fired on them. No matter what the "tension" or "provocation," those men placed their cross-hairs on people who were obviously not a threat and executed them.

I would love to hear, in the soldiers' own words, how they picked their targets.