An older article on Kent State but still remarkable

Kent State - A New Look

This is from the Tampa Tribune in 2006.  It is written by Janis Froelich. 

Items of note - "...the Beacon Journal had planned to do a series of articles on undercover agents on university campuses, but the FBI flew into Akron and stopped that project."  How many other FBI informants and undercover agents of the FBI or other federal, military or state agencies were there on the Kent State campus that day?

                     "the FBI got Terry [Norman] a job and whisked him out of Akron."

                     Sometime between 1970 and 2006 Terry got a tiny taste of what he truly deserves. "He is a convicted felon, so he can't work in law enforcement. He moved to California after leaving the Washington, D.C. police department. He worked for a firm based in Indianapolis until he was charged with embezzling from the company. He was about to leave the country, Nancy said, when the FBI arrested him. Terry served 18 months in prison."  Turns out he was really in prison for 3 years.  


                    "Guardsman Matthew McManus chose to speak. "It was a military operation and we were following orders." 
                    Terry Norman appears to be the source for the lie that a shot was heard from the roof of Taylor Hall.  How convenient that he is allowed to say where he heard a shot from, when he's the source of the shooting!  He told this story to Mickey Porter, a report from the Beacon Journal.  However, he did not have this story when he spoke to campus police immediately after the shootings.  On June 1 1970 he gave a statement to the Ohio State Patrol claiming, ""I heard what seemed to be either a small-arms weapon report or possibly a firecracker. Right after that the Guard opened up,'' he said."  In this statement, Terry said he was given a ride home after the shootings by the National Guard in an Army vehicle.

                 In the buried lead department - "More than a month later, an Ohio Senator told the Beacon Journal that about 50 FBI "students'' would be in classes for the summer session. How many FBI informers and agents were on campus that fatal day was never revealed."  Who was this senator?  Was this a federal senator, or a state senator?

              "In an Oct. 17, 1970 Beacon Journal article, students at a rally asked for the expulsion from their campus of police like CIA and FBI. Besides the fact that these undercover agents were armed and potentially dangerous, some suspected they were stirring things up so Nixon would have damning proof that protesters needed to be silenced."


              "Enter Terry Norman. The KSU archives/May 4th collection provides more information. As a mother and a grandmother, what startled me the most about reading his police statements is how he matter-of-factly describes showing up on campus on May 4.

             "Along with his camera and tear gas mask, he carried a left side cross draw in a semi-shoulder holster. This concealed weapon was a Smith & Wesson Model 36, 38 caliber, nickel plated 2 inch barrel with custom grips and trigger shoe. There were four rounds of Super Val and one of Armor Piercing."

             ARMOR PIERCING!!!!!

             "In November 1970, Terry said he'd gotten the Model 36 revolver in a trade "with a guy name Bruce'' the previous year. That was Bruce VanHorn, an Akron police officer, records show. The patrolman traded the gun to Terry on Sept. 19, 1969. The gun was purchased by VanHorn through the Akron police chief's office.

             "Whatever happened to the gun? Smith & Wesson had it for testing, but in an Aug. 24, 1973 letter said it couldn't be returned to the Special Investigations Division because it had been picked up by the FBI."

             I hope I will see Rep. Kucinich asking someone from the FBI in open congressional testimony where is the gun now. 

           Another person Rep. Kucinich should call is "Fred DeBrine, the NBC newsman on campus on May 4th...All of his archive footage is shown over and over, even of Terry handing over his gun. DeBrine is quoted in "Four Dead in Ohio'' [a book on the shootings] as saying that Terry said, ""I had to shoot! They were going to kill me.''  Then DeBrine heard the KSU campus policeman who took the gun away say, "My God! He fired four times! What the hell do we do now?''

          Janis Froelich notes that "DeBrine has boxes of information."

         Another person Re. Kucinich should call is, "John Dunphy, a business editor at the Orange County Register, spent seven years, full-time, working on Kent State shooting stories for the Beacon Journal.  Dunphy said it wasn't just law enforcement on campuses checking on government dissenters. He checked out army intelligence officers posing as students and other government agency staffers. His best sources weren't what he calls FBI types but justice department lawyers. It's a wonder there were any regular students, I said. He laughed, "Everybody was spying on everybody.''

       Another person to call is Prof. Harold Reid.  He saw Norman shoot, and chased him.  Reid ushered Norman over to police.  Norman gave his gun to KSU police Officer Harold Rice, who then passed the gun to KSU Detective Tom Kelley.  Kelley yelled, "My God! He fired it four times. What the hell do we do now?"

     According to Debrine, "Terry was positioned in a grove of pine trees, which DeBrine said explained why the National Guard fired toward the parking lot. The trees are near the parking lot, downhill from the pagoda.

     "All of a sudden the Guard heard shots from that direction. They thought they were being fired upon,'' DeBrine said.


     "The grove of pine trees. That's where Terry said he was. The whole darn thing was an accident. There was nothing deliberate about it. Terry thought he was protecting himself.''"

     "It was convenient for the federal government to let the National Guard take the blame instead of admitting Terry's role." 

       Always protect those sources and methods.