Revelations from Kent State audio tape prompt congressional inquiry
http://www.cleveland.com/science/index.ssf/2010/10/revelations_from_kent_state_au.html
October 09, 2010
John Mangels
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.
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."
--------
PD Analysis of Kent State Shooting Tape Yields More Questions
http://www.wcpn.org/WCPN/news/32387
Friday, October 8, 2010
New analysis of audio of the 1970 Kent State shooting for The
Cleveland Plain Dealer found something astonishing. An audio expert
says there are pistol shots 70 seconds before the National Guard
opened fire on anti-Vietnam War protestors. ideastream®'s Mhari Saito reports.
--
Listen carefully. This moment in the archive tape of the antiwar
protest at Kent State University in 1970 goes by quickly:
Tape.
The Cleveland Plain Dealer hired a forensic audio expert who compared
those pops using modern digital techniques to the sound of a .38
caliber revolver and found them to be identical. This could mean
that there were shots fired over a minute before the National Guard
opened fire on anti-war protestors killing four students and wounding
nine others. The discovery raises new questions about a pivotal
historical event that galvanized public anger over US military
actions in Vietnam and Cambodia. Alan Canfora is one of the students
wounded that day. He found this tape in an archive in 2007.
Alan Canfora: It's clearly the most significant evidence in 40 years,
this recorded evidence which is more enhanced now because of digital
technology. We need a new investigation.
In 1974, a federal judge dismissed charges against eight guardsmen
stating that the prosecution didn't have a strong enough case for trial.
The audio tape and new analysis do not tell us who may have fired the
handgun or why. The Cleveland Plain Dealer, however, says a Kent
State student hired by the FBI to take photographs during the
demonstration named Terry Norman carried a pistol that could have
made such a sound that day. His whereabouts today are unknown. Mhari
Saito, 90.3.
--------
Tape casts doubt in shootings at antiwar protest
Pistol heard before other Kent State shots
Oct. 9, 2010
CLEVELAND -- A tape recording of the shooting deaths of four Kent
State University students by Ohio National Guardsmen in 1970 reveals
the sound of pistol shots 70 seconds earlier, a newspaper reported
Friday, citing the work of a forensic audio expert.
If the pistol fire is authenticated, it could prove a theory that the
Guardsmen thought they were being shot at during a campus Vietnam War
protest. It also could back up witnesses who said an FBI informant
monitoring the protest fired warning shots because he felt threatened.
The National Guard opened fire on student protesters on May 4, 1970,
killing four and injuring nine. Eight Guardsmen were acquitted of
federal civil rights charges four years later.
Many have said that the events contributed to the change in the
public's attitude toward the war, which ended with U.S. withdrawal in
1975, but what happened that day is still not fully understood.
Forensic audio expert Stuart Allen has reviewed a tape recording and
detected four shots matching the acoustic signature of a .38-caliber
revolver firing, the (Cleveland) Plain Dealer reported. Alan Canfora,
a wounded protester, found a copy of the tape in a library archive in 2007.
"I think it's premature to make any conclusions at this point," said
Canfora, who nevertheless said he believes questions posed by the
analysis add pressure for officials to open a new investigation.
Terry Norman, a Kent State student who was photographing protesters
that day for the FBI, was carrying a loaded .38-caliber revolver
under his coat, the newspaper said. Witnesses reported a
confrontation involving angry students and Norman. Some said he fired
several warning shots.
In an interview with an Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal reporter on the
day of the shootings, Norman said he was carrying the pistol for
protection because protesters previously threatened his life. He
denied firing it, and the presidential commission that investigated
the shootings determined he played no role in them.
A crew from Cleveland's WKYC-TV filmed Norman running toward
Guardsmen and police, being chased by two men. One yelled: "Hey, stop
that man! I saw him shoot someone!"
The crew recorded Norman reaching under his jacket and handing a gun
to a police officer, saying, "The guy tried to kill me." Norman later
repeatedly said he was referring to an assault after the shootings.
Former WKYC reporter Fred DeBrine and sound man Joe Butano have said
repeatedly that they heard a Kent State police detective open the
cylinder of Norman's gun and say: "Oh my God, he fired four times."
The detective denied making the remark, and a campus patrolman's
report said the gun was fully loaded, with no smell of burnt powder.
Butano also has said that he heard the four shots and the National
Guard's rifle volley soon afterward.
The newspaper said Norman has remained elusive for decades. He could
not be reached for comment.
The reel-to-reel audio recording was made by a student who placed a
microphone at a window sill of his dormitory that overlooked the
antiwar rally. He turned the tape over to the FBI, which kept a copy
that wound up in a Yale University archive.
Allen, the audio expert, and a colleague examined the recording
earlier this year at the newspaper's request.
--------
Kucinich probes whether FBI informant triggered Kent State massacre
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/10/newspaper-report-kucinich-opens-probe-kent-state-shootings/
By Stephen C. Webster
Saturday, October 9th, 2010
Following the revelation that an FBI informant may have opened fire
just before the 1970 massacre of four anti-war students by members of
the US National Guard, Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) has opened
a probe into the events, requesting key documents from the FBI in a
letter delivered Saturday morning.
A Friday report by The Cleveland Plain Dealer cites audio forensics
experts in claiming that shots matching the acoustic signature of a
.38 caliber pistol rang out some 70 seconds before Ohio Guardsmen
opened fire on the crowd of students protesting the Vietnam war.
The discovery could finally solve the mystery of who fired first that
fateful day -- and why.
"Earlier this year, [audio expert Stuart] Allen and colleague Tom
Owen examined the recording at The Plain Dealer's request and
determined that Guardsmen were given an order to prepare to fire
moments before they unleashed a 13-second fusillade of rifle shots at
a May 4, 1970 demonstration that killed four students and wounded
nine others," the paper noted. "What compelled the Guard to shoot is
the central mystery of the iconic event, which galvanized sentiment
against the Vietnam War."
After months of research and analysis of audio discovered in 2007,
the paper said it believes FBI informant Terry Norman, pictured
above, could have fired four rounds during an altercation just before
Guard troops shot into the crowd.
Norman told investigators at the time that he hadn't fired his gun,
but he's pictured in television news footage from that day wearing a
gas mask and waving a .38-caliber pistol. No witnesses blamed him for
the initial volley. He claimed he was carrying the firearm for
protection from the protesters, who he alleged threatened him as he
took photos of the confrontation.
The Plain Dealer's report said they were unable to locate Norman for comment.
Reacting to the paper's revelations, Kucinich requested that the FBI provide...
1) All documents pertaining to a relationship between the Bureau,
including any employment records and any payment for photographic or
other services, and Mr. Terry Norman;
2) All documents pertaining to a ballistics test or forensic
examination conducted by the Bureau of a Smith and Wesson pistol
recovered from Terry Norman on or about the day of the Kent State
shootings; and
3) All documents pertaining to assistance of any kind, including
employment assistance provided by the Bureau to or on behalf of Mr.
Terry Norman."
His letter was available online [PDF link] as of early Saturday.
http://kucinich.house.gov/UploadedFiles/100810_Doc_Request_to_FBI_re_Kent_State_shooting.pdf
The FBI was reviewing the congressman's request at time of this
story's publication and had yet to release any documents.
.
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