Will a Militarized Police Force Facing Occupy Wall Street Lead to Another
Kent State Massacre? By Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet
Posted on May 3, 2012, Printed on May 4, 2012
http://www.alternet.org/story/155270/will_a_militarized_police_force_facing_occupy_wall_street_lead_to_another_kent_state_massacre
Today is an ugly anniversary in American history: 42 years ago, National
Guardsman opened fire on anti-Vietnam protesters at Ohio’s Kent
State<
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings>University,
killing four students. Ten days later, Mississippi police fired
on civil rights protesters taking refuge in a women’s dormitory at Jackson
State <
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson_state_killings> University and
killed two more students.
Four decades later, as police across the country
deploy<
http://www.thenation.com/article/164501/paramilitary-policing-seattle-occupy-wall-street>paramilitary
tactics developed for fighting foreign terrorists on Occupy
and some May Day protests, and as campus police ratchet
up<
http://www.alternet.org/story/155252/>responses to tuition hike
protests, we must ask, is this where things
inevitably are headed—toward deadly confrontations between overly armed
police and angered protesters, or just as likely, innocent bystanders
caught in a crossfire?
Some of us lived through the Kent State shootings, anti-war protests and
assassinations of that era. We also cannot forget the student strikes after
the Kent and Jackson State killings that shut down universities and
colleges. We are uneasy about a paramilitary police force's escalating
tactics as Occupy protests continue into 2012.
What’s similar today, but happening faster in our Internet-driven era, is
how both sides, police and a handful of provocateurs—who may not even be
associated with protesters—are willing to use violence. That was the case
Tuesday as bricks were
thrown<
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/02/may-day-protests-in-san-francisco_n_1471822.html>at
police from a San Francisco roof apparently by a disgruntled veteran
and
black-clad men vandalized<
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/may/01/nation/la-na-may-day-seattle-20120502>downtown
storefronts in Seattle, San Francisco and other cities. These
exceptions to what have been overwhelmingly peaceful protests get the
most media
attention<
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/northwestvoices/2018122266_maydaylet.html>,
despite condemnation<
http://www.king5.com/news/local/Occupy-Seattle-condemns-violence-from-May-Day-protests-149826245.html>by
protest organizers, including some who say police may have
moderated<
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=wZTQw6waxaQ>their
tactics since last fall.
I don’t want to be unduly cynical, but the Kent State and Jackson State
protests were typical in their day—and were met by the same kinds of police
shows of force that we have seen since last fall—the use of the
paramilitary tools of their time. I don’t think it is a question of if
police will be provoked into indiscriminately shooting or tasering if
protests seem out of control, but of when they will panic and unleash
deadly force.
Police have shown no reluctance to put on riot gear, conduct mass arrests
and use pepper spray, teargas and concussion grenades in recent months,
just as they have shown no reluctance to
spy<
http://www.justiceonline.org/commentary/dhs-releases-more-documents.html>on
protesters and preemptively arrest people they suspect, often
erroneously, of being leaders, as happened in New York this
week<
http://www.aclu.org/spy-files/nypd-raids-activists-homes-may-day-protests-gawkercom>.
Even this video<
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=wZTQw6waxaQ>from
Portland, where protest organizers say police have backed down, shows
SWAT team aiming high-powered rifles at unarmed protesters and
videographers.
The Kent and Jackson State anniversaries underscore many questions. When
and where will a fatal police overreaction take place? Who will be the
victim? What will be the reaction, including from politicians who helped to
unduly militarize the police?
This scenario is not an accident waiting to happen. Police use undue force
all the time, where the consequence is the armed police shooter kills an
unarmed victim. It has happened many
times<
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_in_the_United_States>in
2012, according to statistics compiled by the government, just not yet
at an Occupy or student protest.
*Excessive Police Forc*e
What happened in May 1970 has eerie echoes today, particularly in terms of
the police responses.
At Kent State <
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings>, 500
students came out to march a day after then-President Richard Nixon gave a
televised address to announce the expansion of the Vietnam War into
Cambodia. Some students burned a copy of the Constitution and their draft
cards -- common protests at the time. That night, some students vandalized
downtown businesses and called for more protests, to “bring the war home.”
Another larger protest was planned for May 4, which was criticized by
Ohio’s governor and which the university sought to shut down. But an
estimated 2,000 people gathered anyway. The university requested that
National Guard troops assist with the policing. What followed was a series
of orders by Guard officers to disperse that were ignored, rocks thrown at
the National Guard officers and their jeeps, tear gas fired at protesters
in response who retreated and regrouped, and eventually, 29 of 77 guardsmen
fired 67 rounds in 13 seconds at the protesters, killing four students and
wounding nine—one of whom was permanently paralyzed. Two of the dead were
anti-war protesters; the other two were students walking to class.
According to official inquiries after the shooting, National Guard officers
said one of the protesters fired first—which was debated and never fully
resolved, just as the role of a student police informer who carried a gun
into the protest was also never resolved. Eyewitnesses said the guardsmen,
who carried rifles with bayonets and wore gas masks, took aim at protesters
several times before a sergeant started shooting with a .45 caliber pistol.
The other guardsmen opened fire after that. A presidential commission that
looked into the shootings criticized both the students and the Guard, but
concluded the indiscriminate firing into the crowd was “unnecessary,
unwarranted and inexcusable.”
Four days later on May 10, 1970, 100,000 protesters gathered in Washington,
DC and 150,000 gathered in San Francisco. Meanwhile, at more than 450 high
schools, colleges and university campuses across the country, an estimated 4
million students
<
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student_Strike_of_1970>stopped attending
classes to protest the Kent State shootings and the war.
Then, on May 14, in Mississippi, it happened again: police shot and killed
more student protesters.
The protests at Mississippi’s Jackson State were sparked by a
rumor<
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126426361>that
Charles Evers, a local politician, activist and the brother of slain
civil rights leader, Medgar Evers, had been killed along with his wife.
After nightfall, about 100 African-American students gathered on a street
that ran through the campus and lit a fire, threw rocks at passing drivers
and overturned cars. The fire department responded and called state police
and highway patrol for backup. The protesters refused orders to disperse
and took refuge in Alexander Hall, a women’s dormitory. The standoff lasted
until after midnight, when dozens of highway patrol officers armed with
shotguns surrounded the building.
What happened next is unclear. Police say they saw a sniper in the upper
dormitory windows and were being fired upon from several directions—a claim
that an FBI investigation later found to be untrue. At least 140 shots were
fired by state highway patrolmen using shotguns from 30 to 50 feet away,
blowing out every window on the street side of the building. Two young men,
including a high school senior who was behind the police lines, were
killed. Others were injured by falling glass or trampled while fleeing. No
arrests were made in the deaths but the presidential commission
investigating the incident called the 28-second bombardment “an
unreasonable, unjustified overreaction” to “unconfirmed sniper fire.”
History never exactly repeats itself. But its currents are never far from
the present. As today’s protesters and police employ bolder tactics, the
Kent State and Jackson State anniversaries should remind us that deadly
mistakes can and do happen. It is the government’s responsibility to wield
proportionate force, not to over-arm police and place them in a position
where they could panic with deadly results.
*Steven Rosenfeld covers democracy issues for AlterNet and is the author of
"Count My Vote: A Citizen's Guide to Voting" (AlterNet Books, 2008). *
© 2012 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at:
http://www.alternet.org/story/155270/
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Received on Fri May 04 2012 - 10:41:12 EDT
