Kent State Shootings: Does former informer hold the key to the May 4 mystery?

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Kent State shootings: Does former informant hold the key to the May 4 mystery?

Published: Sunday, December 19, 2010, 6:01 AM
Updated: Sunday, December 19, 2010, 11:44 AM

By John Mangels, The Plain Dealer

KENT, Ohio — In the four decades since Ohio National Guardsmen fired on students and antiwar demonstrators at Kent State University, Terry Norman has remained a central but shadowy figure in the tragedy.
The 21-year-old law enforcement major and self-described "gung-ho" informant was the only civilian known to be carrying a gun -- illegally, though with the tacit consent of campus police -- when the volatile protest unfolded on May 4, 1970. Witnesses saw him with his pistol out around the time the Guardsmen fired.

Though Norman denied shooting his weapon, and was never charged in connection with the four dead and nine wounded at Kent State, many people suspected he somehow triggered the soldiers' deadly 13-second volley.

In October, a Plain Dealer-commissioned exam of a long-forgotten audiotape from the protest focused new attention on Norman. Enhancement of the recording revealed a violent altercation and four gunshots, 70 seconds before the Guard's fusillade. Forensic audio expert Stuart Allen said the shots are from a .38-caliber pistol, like the one police confiscated from Norman minutes after the Guard shootings.

The newspaper's subsequent review of hundreds of documents from the various investigations of Norman, including his own statements, and interviews with key figures, uncovered more surprising information:

• The Kent State police department's and FBI's initial assessment of Norman was badly flawed, with failures to test his pistol and clothing for evidence of firing, to interview witnesses who claimed Norman may have shot his gun and to pursue the question of whether it was reloaded before police verified its condition.

• The Kent State police detective who took possession of Norman's pistol, and whose investigation ruled out its having been fired, was directing Norman's work as an informant and later helped him get a job as a police officer.

Much more at link:

http://www.cleveland.com/science/index.ssf/2010/12/kent_state_shootings_does_form.html