May 1, 1970

On May 1, 1970 at Kent State University's campus, the protestors against the war met near the Commons and buried a copy of the Constitution. They buried it because they said it was "dead" when the American soldiers were ordered to invade Cambodia without a proper declaration of war from Congress. Later in the evening the protestors went to a bar and began protesting in the streets. When cop cars drove by the anti-war protestors threw beer bottles at them. The protestors caused the police to avoid the bar area where the rally was being held. Once the rally at the bar ended, the students created a fire in the street and began breaking windows that belonged to "political people". For example banks were vandalized and so were utility buildings. The Kent police began to realize that they needed to take action. They declared a "state of emergency" and cleared out all the bars that they suspected would have protests. The police faced the crowd of protestors and drove them back to the University's campus using force. They pepper-sprayed the students and used their knight sticks in order to "safely" get the students back. At the end of the night the police ended up arresting a couple of people, which were mainly homeless people that were caught up in the anti-war crowd. Thousands of dollars of damage was caused that night because of all the vandalizm  the protestors did.