How did state grand jury investigations immediately after May 4, 1970, allocate blame between students, officials and the Ohio National Guard?
Executive summary
A special Portage County (state) grand jury convened after May 4, 1970, placed primary legal blame on Kent State students and university administrators while formally exonerating the Ohio National Guard and returning indictments against roughly 25 students and others; no guardsmen were accused in that state report [1] [2] [3]. That immediate allocation of blame stood in tension with later federal inquiries and national criticism that faulted the Guard’s actions and the broader state response [4] [5].
1. The state grand jury’s finding: students and university administration at fault
The Special Grand Jury of Portage County concluded its investigation by assigning “ultimate blame” to the Kent State University administration and by characterizing student behavior as central to the campus disorders that led to May 4, resulting in indictments of about 25 students and professors for offenses related to the disturbances [1] [2]. Contemporary reporting and later summaries note that the jurors criticized the university’s policies and its inability to control what they labeled “troublemakers,” reflecting the jury’s local perspective and standards [1].
2. Exoneration of the Ohio National Guard in the state report
The same state grand jury explicitly exonerated the Ohio National Guard of legal responsibility for the shootings, choosing not to indict any guardsmen even as it returned multiple charges against students and campus figures; this exoneration became a defining legal posture in Ohio’s immediate aftermath [1] [2]. State-level decisions and public statements following the grand jury reinforced that official finding, and it shaped local narratives for years [3].
3. Public opinion and political context that shaped the state process
Public sentiment in Ohio and nationwide at the time skewed toward blaming protesters, a climate the Portage County jurors reflected: polls taken immediately after the shootings showed a majority blaming students rather than the Guard, and news outlets noted the strong local and national sympathy for state officials and troops [6] [1]. Governor Rhodes’ decision to call a special state grand jury and the Justice Department’s initial deliberations over possible criminal liability for guardsmen underscore how politics and public order concerns framed the state response [7] [3].
4. Tension with federal and commission findings: alternative official views
While the state grand jury cleared the Guard, other investigations disagreed: the President’s Commission on Campus Unrest described the shootings as “unnecessary, unwarranted and inexcusable,” and federal prosecutors later convened a grand jury that ultimately indicted eight guardsmen in 1974 on civil-rights charges—an escalation indicating that federal authorities saw possible culpability unacknowledged by the state panel [4] [5]. These divergent official findings reveal a split between local/state conclusions and broader federal and national judgments.
5. Legal aftershocks and reassessment of blame
The state-level indictments against students were largely dropped by the end of 1971, and the federal criminal case against eight guardsmen ended in acquittal in 1974 when a judge ruled the government had not proven willful intent beyond a reasonable doubt; nonetheless, civil litigation and public reckoning continued, culminating in a 1979 settlement in which Ohio paid plaintiffs and officials issued statements of regret—an outcome that complicates any simple reading of “blame” [3] [8] [4]. The sequence—state exoneration of the Guard, federal indictment, judicial dismissal, and later civil settlement—shows that legal accountability was contested, sequential, and shaped by differing evidentiary standards and political pressures [5] [3].