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Howard Lisnoff reports via CounterPunch:
Stuart Allen died on November 22, 2016. I learned of his death by way of an email from Laurel Krause, whose sister Allison was gunned down by the National Guard on May 4, 1970, just after the noon hour during a demonstration against the U.S. incursion into Cambodia during the Vietnam War.
Stuart Allen would not like to be called a hero, although he certainly was one. Stuart was both an audio and video expert, with degrees in both fields and worked out of his lab and business in New Jersey that offers expert [analysis] of that kind of data. Stuart often worked for law enforcement, including the Justice Department and the FBI.
In 2010, both Stuart and another forensic audio expert, Tom Owen, provided information at the request of the Cleveland Plain Dealer (New analysis of 40-year old recording of Kent State shootings reveals that Ohio Guard was given an order to prepare to fire May 9, 2010) about a new analysis of the famous Strubbe tape, a recording of the events that led up to the death of four students and the wounding of nine others during a demonstration against the U.S. incursion into Cambodia.
[...] "Guard"... "All right, prepare to fire!"... "Get down!"... and finally "Guard!"...is followed by the fusillade of lethal bullets. It took seventeen seconds for those words to change history forever.
[Continues...]
The 2010 article by the The Plain Dealer notes:
The original 30-minute reel-to-reel tape was made by Terry Strubbe, a Kent State communications student in 1970 who turned on his recorder and put its microphone in his dorm window overlooking the campus Commons, hoping to document the protest unfolding below.
[...] The Justice Department paid a Massachusetts acoustics firm, Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc., to scrutinize the recording in 1974 in support of the government's ultimately unsuccessful attempt to prosecute eight Guardsmen for the shootings. That review, led by the company's chief scientist, James Barger, focused on the gunshot pattern and made no mention of a command readying the soldiers to fire.
[...] Using sophisticated software initially developed for the KGB, the Soviet Union's national security agency, Allen weeded out extraneous noises - wind blowing across the microphone, and a low rumble from the tape recorder's motor and drive belt--that obscured voices on the recording.
He isolated individual words, first identifying them by their distinctive, spidery "waveform" traces on a computer screen, then boosting certain characteristics of the sound or slowing the playback to make out what was said. Owen independently corroborated Allen's work.
For hours on Thursday, first in Allen's dim, equipment-packed lab in Plainfield and later in Owen's more spacious, equally high-tech shop in nearby Colonia, the two men pored over the crucial recording segment just before the gunfire. They looped each word, playing it over and over, tweaking various controls and listening intently until they agreed on its meaning.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday December 07 2016, @03:20PM
"Most of the senior Ohio National Guard officers directly in charge of the troops who fired on May 4, 1970 have since died. Ronald Snyder, a former Guard captain who led a unit that was at the Kent State protest but was not involved in the shootings, said Friday that the prepare-to-fire phrasing on the tape does not seem consistent with how military orders are given.
"I do know commands," Snyder said. "You would never see anything in training that would say 'Guard, do this.' It would be like saying, 'Army, do this.' It doesn't make sense." "
_________________________
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/02/01/can-the-demands-of-history-resolve-the-kent-state-massacre-controversy/ [counterpunch.org]
"Allen said that he would provide FBI sound experts at Quantico, Virginia with the results of his analysis of the Strubbe tape for their own use. The cassette copy of the original Strubbe tape was a copy of the reel-to-reel tape and was accepted as bona fide evidence in federal court."
Issue number one. Having marched and maneuvered in formation, I never heard "NAVY . . . HAND SALUTE . . . TWO" I heard "COMPANY . . . HAND SALUTE . . . TWO" or I heard "DETAIL . . . HAND SALUTE . . . TWO" I wondered about that "guard" business as I read through the article, it just didn't feel right. Then we have a Guard officer plainly state that HE has never heard orders passed in that manner either.
Issue number two. The analysts weren't working with the original reel-to-reel. Instead, they were analyzing a cassette tape. In my own personal experience, reel-to-reel tape is either high quality, very high quality, or extremely high quality. Cassette tape - not so much. The best cassette tape I ever worked with fell short of that extremely high quality standard. I often worked with cheap, crap cassette tape, because that was all that was available, or it was all I could afford. Ditto for the recording devices. A reel-to-reel recorder is capable of capturing sound that even high quality cassette recorders simply couldn't capture. The very high and extremely high quality recorders - maybe, if you were very, very lucky.
Issue number three. I have done my feeble best to decipher poorly captured audio from recorders. I even took a recording to court, certain of what was on the tape, and with a manuscript prepared from my work with the tape. The judge asked to listen to the tape, and refused to accept the tape or the manuscript as evidence. Maybe if I had credentials, it would have been considered evidence - or maybe not. The judge apparently believed that I heard what I wanted to hear, or that I simply fabricated the whole thing. Whatever.
Anyway, issue number three is, these experts may well have heard what they wanted to hear, as well. "Guard . . . Prepare to fire . . . F"
It just doesn't "feel right".
What do I believe? I believe the guardsmen fired under orders. Three pistol shots, followed by a volley of rifle fire, sounds about right. The pistol shot would have effectively BEEN the command. But, "prepare to fire" still doesn't feel right. I never heard such an order. It was more like "Squad, fix bayonets, lock and load!" "Squad follow me, on the double!" "Squad echelon right" And, had we been ordered to fire while in ranks, it would have been "Squad FIRE!"
Proper disclaimers here - 1. I'm Navy, not Guard. 2. We never did have to fire from in ranks. 3. I certianly don't mean to imply that I'm any kind of an audio forensics expert.
I've clicked a few more links from the google search page, and found nothing remarkable. Most articles are just echoes of TFA.
I may be worth pointing out that this analysis was done in 2010. The story being published (or republished) at this time is only to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Kent State shootings.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday December 07 2016, @04:05PM
An alternative interpretation that may change things a bit: "Guard" could have been a verb, as in a command to take up some sort of defensive posture.
Another factor here: The officers and guardsmen were not equipped properly (for instance, they didn't have the shields now issued to riot police, nor rubber bullets or police batons or any of the other non-lethal equipment that is now commonly used in riot control situations), and had no training or experience dealing with civil disturbances. They were put into a situation where they didn't know what to do, and it's no surprise that they screwed up.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday December 08 2016, @02:00AM
Except, a contemporary officer in another unit performing the same duties at the same time in the same place has said the he has never heard orders passed in such a manner.
See, I'm allowing for the fact that over time, doctrine and methodology change. If this other officer were a fresh-faced boot officer on duty today, we might discount his claims. But, he was contemporary with the officer directing this particular unit.
You, and other people, may dismiss my own experiences, because I didn't even enter the service until 1975. I entered a different service than these officers, so a lot of things could be very different. But, when you get down to the nitty gritty, an officer or NCO must be intimately familiar with his troops. "Guard" is so very generic. Any officer shouting "Guard" in an environment with a lot of National Guard around could and would be mistaken as another unit's CO. It just doesn't make sense.
As I stated, I believe that the Guardsmen fired under orders. But, the details of this newly discovered order are simply wrong. Mistakes have been made, and I've cited technological reasons as well as personal reasons that this may be so. The order, as published by these two techs, just doesn't make sense.
(Score: 1) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Wednesday December 07 2016, @04:08PM
When I was in Cadets, orders were often given by group size while on parade.
For example "Battalion... attention!" "Company... Right wheel!" "Section halt!"
(Score: 1) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Wednesday December 07 2016, @04:13PM
Re-reading the GP, I see I was not contradicting anything.
(Score: 2) by AudioGuy on Wednesday December 07 2016, @04:31PM
This wasn't a training excercise. Things are different under fire, and I remember there were reports of some protesters throwing rocks and bottles. The kind of riot gear you see today did not exist. There was more separation between the guard and regular army than today, and they generally weren't as well trained as today.
I'd guess there were at least also regular police, possibly state police, and campus police present. So under the circumstances, prefacing orders with 'guard' might have made sense to distinguish who the orders were to.
Not that any of that excuses firing on protestors. Calling out the guard in the first place seemed excessive to me, and an invitation to disaster.
I don't know if an order was given to fire, it seems like about 50/50 to me whether it was that or just a cluster-fuck.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday December 07 2016, @05:49PM
The situation was that the city had been in a near-riot for several days, and an army recruiting office had been burned to the ground. And there were definitely rocks thrown at vehicles, whether or not they were thrown at cops / guardsmen. So I understand why the mayor called in for help.
None of that justifies firing live ammunition at unarmed civilians, of course.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 08 2016, @05:23AM
Just how "unarmed" are you when rocks, blocks, and glass bottles are thrown at you?
If even one person runs up at me with glaring eyes, clenched teeth, and half a cinder block, I'm going to give that person multiple hot lead injections. I can't see much difference between a 1-vs-1 and squad-vs-crowd.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday December 07 2016, @05:30PM
I don't think so, but... what if some college student was trying to mess with the guards and had sneaked around behind and given those orders? And under the pressures and distractions of the situation, the guards bought it? Didn't instantly realize that wasn't the voice of an officer? That could explain the non-standard nature of the orders.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday December 07 2016, @10:03PM
I don't think so, but... what if some college student was trying to mess with the guards and had sneaked around behind and given those orders? And under the pressures and distractions of the situation, the guards bought it?
By all eyewitness accounts, there were quite a few yards between the guardsmen and the surrounding crowds. Of the wounded, the closest was over 70 feet away. It seems rather doubtful that men couldn't distinguish between an order given within their group vs. something shouted from a place where no soldiers were and >30 feet away.
And what would be the motivation for this exactly? To get other protesters killed? I'm sure many of these students hated police and the military, etc., but are you suggesting they'd be willing to try to bait soldiers into firing on some of their friends? For what? Publicity?!
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday December 08 2016, @01:24AM
I highly doubt that a college student could fool a squad or platoon of soldiers into following his commands. Have you ever used, or been exposed to what I'll call "command voice"? It's something you'll hear if you watch some of the boot camp videos on Youtube. It takes time to train that voice. Precious few college students have even been exposed to the environment(s) in which the voice is cultivated. And, even if some individual student did possess a command voice, the odds that he sounds like these soldier's CO are about slim to none.
Believe me or not, it's really tough to make your voice carry in a combat, a riot, or even an industrial or construction environment*. It takes training and effort to make your voice carry, in such a manner that people understand and obey you.
*by "construction environment" I mean big industrial building projects. You average small town carpenter has no need to learn to make his voice carry.