Kent State Shootings: A Lot of People Were Crying, and the Guard Walked Away

This story was originally published in the June 11th, 1970 issue of Rolling Stone.

KENT, Ohio — Just down the street from P. G. Sellman’s Tire & Appliance Store and Gas Station, close to the Cuyahoga River, the striped gate of a railroad crossing has lowered slowly, with dignity, until it is now parallel with the ground, separating the Mustangs, Chevelles, Dodge Chargers, MGBs (not so many of these, since the shootings) and Buick Electras on the east side of Main Street from the Comets, International campers, Chevy Sportvans, Lincoln Capris and Ford Torinos on the West side of Main Street. No Jaguars, Porsches, Toronados, Caddies, Thunderbirds, motorcycles — hell, not even many Volkswagens or Toyotas here — and the automobiles of Kent wait patiently for the Erie Lackawanna to trundle by with its load of dirt-orange, tractor-red, sump-pump blue and sunflower yellow farm machines and its Hydra-Cushion for Fragile Freight flatbeds and azure L & N Pool Dip box-cars, heading out to Youngstown and Pittsburgh and points east with another load of common-sense, Midwestern productivity.

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The kids had come out of the North Water Street bars for the first time on Thursday night, angered at President Nixon’s Cambodia Invasion plans and listening to the small core of ex-SDS Weatherman types who had been talking it up in the bars, egging them on to violence. There was some yelling and throwing of beer bottles but the police knew the real radicals and they weren’t anxious to be recognized and busted, as their leaders — Howie Emmer, Rick Erickson, Colin Neiberger and Jeff Powell — had only recently gotten out of the Portage County clink after serving seven-and-one-half months each for assault and battery and inciting to riot. The local cops were able to control things.

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https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/kent-state-shootings-may-4-1970-992983/