The gunfire has just ended, almost as abruptly as it began. Student Harold Reid maneuvers his way up Blanket Hill among some of the casualties, perhaps a couple hundred feet from the National Guardsmen. That's when he notices a young man pointing a handgun in the direction of another man who is lying on the ground. The armed man obviously is not a member of the National Guard; he's wearing a light sports jacket and tan trousers, and a camera and a gas mask hang around his neck. When the man sees Reid, he begins to run.

"Stop that man, he has a weapon!" shouts Reid, chasing after him.

That man — Terrence Brookes Norman — has never stopped running. He has avoided attention for 36 years, perhaps for good reason. He was an FBI informant in 1970, and some believe he fired the first shot at Kent State that day in May, instigating the National Guard to fire on protestors.

Norman's role and long silence are not the only factors fueling conspiracy theories surrounding the events of May 4, 1970. Although the lives of everyone present were profoundly affected by the 13 seconds they shared, few agree on many specifics. Questions remain. Cover-ups are alleged. And only one thing is clear: Someone has to be lying.

I'm not supposed to be here.

Dennis Breckenridge marched up Blanket Hill on the Kent campus with the rest of the guardsman of Troop G of the Ohio National Guard. A barrage of thrown rocks hammered against his body as student activists pursued him and his fellow guardsmen. The students were close enough for Breckenridge to see the anger in their eyes as they pelted him with stones and shouted, "Pigs! Pigs! Pigs!" Their hatred was almost palpable, and he wondered if perhaps they thought the guardmen's M-1 rifles weren't loaded.

I'm not supposed to be here.

A 26-year-old sergeant, Breckenridge was supposed to retire from the service a week earlier. But the Teamsters went on strike and before he could turn in his weapon, he was called upon to protect scabs from getting killed on the highway. Then hippies started burning down Kent, and his troop was transferred there.

The longhairs were mostly angry with President Nixon, who had announced plans to invade Cambodia. After burying a copy of the Constitution during a demonstration on campus, the leftist students of Kent State had taken to the streets on Friday, May 1. They broke storefront windows and scared residents with their chants of "Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh!" and "One, two, three, four, we don't want your fucking war!" They ignited a bonfire in the street. The mayor declared a state of emergency and Gov. Jim Rhodes called in the National Guard to push the protestors back toward campus using tear gas.

The rebellion escalated on Saturday, when the ROTC building was torched. The next day, the hippies staged a massive sit-in on Main Street, completely blocking traffic. That was when Breckenridge's troop was sent in. That was when he was first bruised by flying rocks.

I'm not supposed to be here.

Hoping to avoid further injury on May 4, he wore thick clothing and rolled his jacket up around his neck, he recalls. And as Troop G retreated up the hill behind Taylor Hall shortly after noon, Breckenridge was so hot he could hardly breath. He felt the adrenaline in his blood, causing his heart to race. He thought he might be hyperventilating. The wind carried tear gas. Some protestors were throwing the half-spent smoking canisters back at the guardsmen. Rocks thrown from several yards arced like golf balls, curving across the sky toward their targets.

Breckenridge heard someone yell, "We're out of gas!"

Then, a shot rang out, followed by a continuous volley of gunfire. Breckenridge temporarily forgot his own pain — and the fact that he was not supposed to be there. For the next 13 seconds, he watched as their bullets raced toward the students, dividing the day into vignettes of tragedy.

One

John Filo, a senior journalism student with a camera slung around his neck, yells at the students to stop running. He thinks the guardsmen are shooting blanks, trying to scare everyone. Filo snaps pictures as he yells, framing the melee as well as he can manage through the viewfinder of his Nikkormat. Then he watches as a bullet pierces a metal sculpture standing between the guardsmen and the students. It punches a circle of light through the piece of artwork, rendering it priceless forever. These are not blanks.

Two

As the guardsmen swing around and raise their weapons, 18-year-old Joseph Lewis flips them the bird. He has been a relatively passive participant to this point, but something about the audacity of the military men's threat of violence angers him. He had worked through high school to save enough money for one year of college and now these men have taken over his campus.

Three

Guardsman Larry Shafer spots Lewis's obscene gesture as he pivots and raises his M-1. Shafer shoots the man in the stomach. Another guardsman shoots Lewis in the left leg, just above the ankle.

Four

Alan Canfora has been a visible protestor all day, shouting profanities at the guardsmen and defiantly waving a dark flag as they tried to disperse the crowd of students. As the bullets pierce the air, Canfora leaps for cover behind a tree. He isn't quick enough. Someone shoots him in the wrist. It seems they are aiming for him.

Five

In the parking lot of Prentice Hall, 270 feet from the guardsmen, Jeff Miller watches them fire into the crowd. He has been in the front ranks most of the day, so many of the guardsmen must recognize his face. One of them puts a bullet directly into Miller's mouth, a symbolic bit of retribution. It exits the base of Miller's skull and his body collapses onto the concrete.

Six

Nearby, Miller's friend and fellow activist Allison Krause begins to turn away. She is shot three times in the back. "Barry, I'm hit!" she exclaims, calling out for a friend. The bullet that kills her enters through her left arm and travels to her chest.

Seven

Sandy Scheuer is 390 feet away when she is shot through the neck. She falls, her blood spilling onto the ground around her body.

Eight

William Schroeder is walking to class, taking a shortcut through the throng of protestors, when the gunfire starts. He's attending Kent State on an ROTC scholarship and has not participated in any protest, but the bullet that kills him doesn't care. It enters his back and shatters a rib, sending fragments of bone and metal out a small hole in his left shoulder.

Nine

The men of Company A stand beside Troop G, also firing at the students. Guardsman Robert James fires once into the air, then quickly ejects the remaining seven cartridges. He doesn't trust himself with a loaded firearm in this confusion.

Ten

As he unloads his weapon into the crowd with semi-automatic speed, Guardsman William Herschler suffers a mental breakdown. Later, as he is driven to the hospital to be treated for hypertension, he will repeat a simple refrain, over and over: "I shot two teenagers. I shot two teenagers."

Eleven

Donald McKenzie runs from the guard. He's about 250 yards away, but is shot in the neck. The bullet strikes his jawbone and exits through his cheek.

Twelve

One hundred yards away, Dean Kahler is shot in the side. The bullet tears through his flesh and slams into three vertebrae, paralyzing him for life.

Thirteen

Fourteen-year-old runaway Mary Ann Vecchio kneels beside the body of Jeff Miller. As the gunfire ends, her anguish fills the silence. She turns to the crowd, crying out in horror. John Filo captures the girl in his viewfinder and snaps the picture for which he will soon win the Pulitzer Prize.

The survivors of May 4 remember these 13 seconds in post-traumatic detail, recalling smells, texture and sound as if it had happened moments ago. That gunfire echoes across time, returning them to that day when they least expect it. Each has their own theory about how and why the shootings occurred.

Who Really Burned Down the ROTC Building?

By Saturday evening, May 2, it was no secret that the Kent State protestors planned to torch the ROTC building. The structure was a symbol of a corrupt administration, bent on invading sovereign countries for political gain. It was the protestors' primary target.

At around 8 p.m., a group of several hundred demonstrators converged on the ROTC building. To their surprise, it was unprotected.

"The Kent State Police Department was located in Kent Hall at the time," explains Alan Canfora, who was among the arsonists that night. Kent Hall is less than a quarter mile from the ROTC building. But for the next hour and a half, the police did not attempt to stop them from burning the place down.

They broke the windows. Someone set fire to the curtains, hoping it would spread. Another person dipped a rag in gasoline, lit the cloth, then tossed it into a window. Try as they might, though, the fire wouldn't catch. Canfora compares the effort to a Three Stooges routine. Police could have stopped them easily.

"Why, on this evening, was the building left unprotected? I find that to be very suspicious."

Student activist Steve Sharoff was later interviewed concerning his involvement in the protests. A transcript of that conversation can be found in the files of Charles Thomas, who once worked for the National Archives. His notes are kept by the Special Collections department at the Kent State library. It's not clear who interviewed Sharoff, but the tape of the conversation was saved by Thomas.

"Throughout all this time, there was not one policeman around, and this was rather a paradox because before, the first signs of anything, the whole campus police force was there," says Sharoff. "And all of a sudden people are burning down a building and no campus police whatsoever."

"The police didn't come?" asks a separate interviewer on a different tape, questioning student James Woodring.

"No, nobody," answers Woodring. "I just can't believe that nobody knew what was going on down there … with that many people standing there yelling."

Only after a local fire crew responded and students began cutting into the fire hoses did the university police get involved. At 9:17, deputies from the Portage County Sheriff's Office assisted them. The police shot teargas into the crowd, pushing the demonstrators back to the commons behind the building. At that time, what remained of the small fires inside the ROTC building were extinguished and the firemen left.

Alan Canfora returned a half hour later with around 2,000 protestors, hoping to finish what they started. But the ROTC building was already engulfed in flame.

"When we were chased away, the fire was out," says Canfora. He believes law enforcement actually set another blaze. He points to an incident involving provocateurs from the FBI's counter-intelligence program that occurred three days later. Agents in Tuscaloosa, Alabama later admitted their role in starting a fire inside an ROTC building there on May 7.

After the ROTC fire, the Ohio National Guard took control of the city. Canfora feels the fire was set on purpose so the city would be forced to turn over its security to federal authorities — the first step in a series of machinations orchestrated from the highest levels of the state and federal governments to put activist students in front of anxious guardsmen and make an example of them for the rest of the nation.

"Governor Rhodes and President Nixon — I think it goes all the way to the top," Canfora says. "I believe it's possible that someone working for the government finished the job we had started. I think the guardsmen were manipulated by Rhodes and Nixon. I believe the triggermen were victims, too."

Reached at his home in Oregon, Joseph Lewis says he agrees with Canfora's theory.

"By some manipulation of events, this was Nixon's attempt to stop dissent in America," claims Lewis. "And Governor Rhodes went happily along with it."

Even Dennis Breckenridge, the Troop G sergeant on May 4, feels the National Guard were used as political pawns, but he notes that the activists made it easy.

"Rhodes was an asshole," Breckenridge says. "A Gestapo. We shouldn't have been there. But [the protestors] burned the building down. We got called because the ROTC building was symbolic. But I didn't care about a building. I didn't care about any of it. I just wanted to go home."

Still, no student was ever prosecuted for the ROTC fire. The FBI later claimed it was set by high-schoolers on LSD.

Was there an order to fire?

Recently, the FBI released over 1,000 pages of investigative material related to the Kent State incident. This report refers to Blanket Hill as a "grassy knoll." If the government wanted to quell grand conspiracies, it could have picked a better way to describe this location.

It was on that grassy knoll that something occurred which caused at least 29 guardsmen to fire 67 bullets into the crowd. Some say a commander gave the order to turn and shoot. Others claim they heard a single shot before the National Guard opened fire. Everyone, however, agrees that the guardsmen turned in unison, as if responding to the same thing.

Moments before the guard retreated up Blanket Hill, a few members of Troop G formed a small huddle. What was said inside that huddle has never been made public, but some believe this band of men conspired to turn on the protestors when they reached a landmark at the top of the hill.

"What I witnessed was when [the Guard] reached the corner of the railing at Taylor Hall, the first three guardsmen turned," says Lewis. "The others joined them."

"That's stupid," says Breckenridge. "All that was said in the huddle was, 'Jesus Christ, these kids are going to kill us. How did this happen?' If there had been a plot, I guarantee there would have been more than four dead."

In the written reports filed later that day by members of the National Guard, it's obvious that some did respond to an order to fire.

"I heard the order to fire," wrote Robert James of Company A. Guardsmen Roger Maas, James Farriss and Richard Shade also claimed to hear the command, though none identified the source.

PROVOCATEUR? Terry Norman stands with Guardsmen.

Sergeant Matthew McManus later admitted to ordering the guardsmen to "fire over their heads," but claimed this was said only after the shooting had begun.

Larry Shafer believes a trigger-happy guardsman shot first, and the rest of the men took it as a sign to engage. He stops short of implicating anyone, but says, "I have my suspicions."

Sgt. Myron Pyror is one likely suspect. He can be seen in photos standing toward the front of the line, brandishing a handgun. "At one point, Sgt. Pryor said if they rush us, shoot them," wrote James Pierce in his report.

If Pryor did fire first, it would explain another interesting fact. Of those who heard a single shot before the volley, most believe it came from a different weapon than the standard M-1 rifle. Pryor's pistol was a .45. The FBI later found .45-caliber bullets on the scene that could not be matched to any weapon. Pryor, who died in 2002, claimed he never fired and offered to have his gun tested.

"Later, Myron told me he knew how to replace a firing pin to make a gun look like it hadn't been fired," says Shafer. "He said he could replace the barrel, too, so it wouldn't read the same. He probably had his own weapon that day. If you look in the picture that was taken at that moment, you can see the back of his gun is pushed back. The only reason that would be, is if it is being fired."

Did an FBI informant instigate the shootings?

Adding further confusion is the presence of a snitch who worked for the feds — one who happened to be carrying a loaded handgun.

According to documents released by the FBI, Terry Norman had been assisting university police and the FBI in identifying student activists on campus for several months prior to May 4. Members of Students for a Democratic Society recall Norman trying to infiltrate their meetings, toting his camera with him. They suspected he was using the camera to take pictures of the activists which he would turn over to the authorities. For his efforts, the FBI paid him $125 a month.

After finding Norman standing over the body of a student, gun in hand, Harold Reid chased him behind Taylor Hall and into a group of guardsmen (Reid did not recognize Norman). Several members of the campus police were standing nearby.

In his statement for university police, Norman wrote, "Patrolman Harold Rice said, 'Do you have a gun?' I said, 'Yes.' He said, 'You better let me have it.' So I gave it to him. I then went up to the police department with Patrolman Rice and Detective Tom Kelley."

BE PREPARED! Norman wore a gas mask that day.

Detective Robert Winkler's report from that day states that Detective Kelley "advised that the report was that Terry Norman has shot someone."

This would not have been particularly good news for Detective Kelley; Norman answered to him. When Norman took pictures of Kent State student protestors, he would hand them over to Kelley, who then would share this information with Special Agent Bill Chapin at the Akron FBI bureau.

Kelley would later claim that Norman's gun was fully loaded with five bullets and did not have the odor of a weapon that has recently been fired. The FBI refused to test it because it had passed through too many hands.

Authorities also discovered that Norman's gun had been reported stolen by the manufacturer, Smith & Wesson. Norman claimed he purchased the weapon from an Akron police officer.

Other interesting details can be found in Norman's statement, which was only recently released by university officials. For example, he made a point to distance himself from the first gunshot. At the time, he assumed everyone had noticed it. "I heard what I thought was a small caliber shot, it sounded like it came from my right but I can't be positive," he told police. When asked if the gun was loaded, he said, "Yes, with four rounds of Super Val [sic] and one of Armor Piercing."

An investigation was conducted by the Ohio Attorney General's office in 1973, after Norman's presence was finally revealed by a member of the National Guard. J. Edgar Hoover at first denied Norman was an employee. Then, FBI officials admitted they had paid him for some photographs. The investigation concluded "that Norman did have the time to reload quickly his pistol after first being chased by Reid."

In his haste, did Norman replace a bullet with one that did not match those already in the weapon?

"Terry Norman is very suspicious," says Lewis. "I think there was a cover-up afterwards."

"I always thought that was kind of weird," says ex-guardsman Breckinridge. "You've got a guy running around on that hill with a gun."

When Norman applied to be an officer with the Washington, D.C. Police Department, Detective Kelley wrote a letter of recommendation. This became public only after Kelley's death.

STILL Hiding Norman "keeps to himself."

Norman fell off the map in '73 and has never granted an interview. Over the last three decades, he has moved frequently and kept his number unlisted. Free Times caught up with Norman in the rural South.

Today, Norman works as a Honda salesman. Apparently, he makes a decent living. His house sits among several mansions atop a mountain, past a chained gate, out of view. His neighbors say that Norman keeps to himself. They're lucky to see him more than once a month.

On Monday, as I waited in a car near a row of mailboxes at the base of this mountain, Norman suddenly appeared in a large truck, slamming to a stop, sending gravel into the air. (He probably guessed who I was from my Ohio tags. I had called a few days earlier, and he'd hung up on me.) The 57-year-old jumped out and walked quickly over to the car. He wore a tan jacket and a panama hat over his bald head.

"Who are you? What do you want?"

I started to open the driver's-side door. As I did, Norman jumped back. I watched as both of his hands moved quickly to his right jacket pocket. My door remained closed. Instead, I raised my hands in surrender.

"I just want to talk to you for five minutes. We have some questions about Kent State."

"No," he said, angrily. "You're now stalking me."

"I'll leave."

Fearful Symmetry

The survivors of May 4 don't really expect answers to their questions. They don't even expect an apology anymore.

THE VICTIMS Clockwise from top left: Krause, Schroeder, Scheuer and Miller.

"We've forgiven the people who shot us," says Lewis. "But we don't forgive them for murdering four students in cold blood. That's beyond our ability to forgive."

Alan Canfora is more pointed. "I don't obsess about who shot who anymore," he says. "All I know is one of those bastards shot me. And [some] got away with murder. I'm still pissed, but I don't blame the triggermen as much as Nixon or Rhodes."

"I didn't want to shoot anybody that day," says Shafer. "But that's what we were trained to do. We should never have been on that campus."

Whether they know it or not, the aging guardsmen and activists see eye-to-eye on one subject: the strange parallels between 1970 and today. President Nixon expanded an unwinnable war by invading Cambodia. His administration spied on American citizens and placed informants on university campuses. President Bush faces similar lack of support for invading Iraq. His system of warrantless wiretaps is used to spy on American citizens. Last week, the Bush administration revealed details of an FBI program which secretly gathers information on legal residents from their credit cards, banks and Internet companies. The University of Akron planted at least one undercover informant in its dorms, and a student who may have been falsely accused of buying drugs from this informant committed suicide. Not to mention, Neil Young — who wrote "Ohio" in memory of Kent State — is about to release an entire album of songs against the policies of the Bush administration.

"Sadly, history repeats when citizens remain unaware of past historical lessons," says Canfora, who has been chairperson of the Barberton Democratic Party since 1992 (no Republican has been elected during his tenure). "The Iraq war, like Vietnam, is based upon lies. War criminal George Bush is just a Nixon clone but Bush is protected, until November, by a Republican Congress. History will truly repeat in 2007 when a Democratic Congress impeaches Bush or forces him to resign."

"We shouldn't be cramming our way of life down other countries' throats," says Larry Shafer. "But you get who you vote for. Don't believe anything this government tells you."

Margaret Garmon, who was subpoenaed to testify before the House Internal Security Committee in 1969 regarding what she knew about local student protestors, is spooked. Today she teaches at Kent State and fears for those called away to serve in Iraq. "For awhile, we thought, 'Thank God, Vietnam's over, this will never happen again," she says. "Now, Jesus Christ, we're back in the same situation!"

"When I look at today's world, I'm afraid of Kent State in 2006," says Joseph Lewis. "I'm afraid for what this administration will do. And I thought Nixon was bad. Now, we have a military dictator trying to rule the country. He thinks he can get away with murder. I'm afraid of what this portends for the anti-war movement."

Asked how our society could have returned to the same state of affairs that led to the Kent State massacre, Lewis sighs and says, "I don't know if we ever really left."

All photos: News Service Photographs, May 4 Collection, Kent State University Libraries.

36th Annual May 4 Commemoration

Annual Silent Candlelight Vigil

Midnight-12:24 p.m. at Prentice parking lot.

Commemoration: 11 a.m.-2 p.m. at Kent State Commons; speakers include Mary Ann Vecchio, subject of John Filo's Pulitzer-winning photo (1 p.m.) and Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Code Pink: Women for Peace (1:40 p.m.); performances by Emma's Revolution and EP3. A March for Peace will commence after the commemoration.