Latest news with #KentState
Indianapolis Star
15-06-2025
- Sport
- Indianapolis Star
Indiana football lands commitment from in-state prospect whose potential stands out
Indiana football has received a commitment from a Class of 2026 in-state prospect who hasn't played in a couple of seasons but holds tremendous potential. Parker Elmore of Columbus North is being recruited as a tight end, though he also plays linebacker and previously played quarterback at Jennings County. He held offers from Kent State and Illinois State, with interest from Michigan State and Wisconsin. The 6-foot-5, 225 pounder suffered a torn ACL as a sophomore, then sat his junior season at Columbus North because of IHSAA transfer rules. IU is coming off a College Football Playoff appearance. Gathering bodies: IU lands commitment from Center Grove offensive lineman
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
With troops in Los Angeles, echoes of the Kent State massacre
Ohio National Guard members with gas masks and rifles advance toward Kent State University students during an anti-war protest on May 4, 1970. More than a dozen students were killed or injured when the guard opened fire. (.) This article was originally published by The Trace. Earlier in June, President Donald Trump deployed thousands of National Guard troops and Marines to quell anti-deportation protests and secure federal buildings in downtown Los Angeles. The move, some historians say, harks back 55 years to May 4, 1970, when Ohio's Republican governor summoned the National Guard to deal with students demonstrating against the Vietnam War at Kent State University. Guard members were ordered to fire over the students' heads to disperse the crowd, but some couldn't hear because they were wearing gas masks. The troops fired at the students instead, killing four and wounding another nine. The shooting served as a cautionary tale about turning the military on civilians. 'Dispatching California National Guard troops against civilian protesters in Los Angeles chillingly echoes decisions and actions that led to the tragic Kent State shooting,' Brian VanDeMark, author of the book 'Kent State: An American Tragedy,' wrote this week for The Conversation. We asked VanDeMark, a history professor at the United States Naval Academy, more about the parallels between 1970 and today. His interview has been edited for length and clarity. After the Kent State shooting, it became taboo for presidents or governors to even consider authorizing military use of force against civilians. Is the shadow of Kent State looming over Los Angeles? VanDeMark: For young people today, 55 years ago seems like a very long time. For the generation that came of age during the '60s and were in college during that period, Kent State is a defining event, shaping their views of politics and the military. There are risks inherent in deploying the military to deal with crowds and protesters. At Kent State, the county prosecutor warned the governor that something terrible could happen if he didn't shut down the campus after the guard's arrival. The university's administration did not want the guard brought to campus because they understood how provocative that would be to student protesters who were very anti-war and anti-military. It's like waving a red flag in front of a bull. The military is not trained or equipped to deal well with crowd control. It is taught to fight and kill, and to win wars. California Governor Gavin Newsom has said that deploying the guard to Los Angeles is inflammatory. What do you fear most about this new era of domestic military deployment? People's sense of history probably goes back five or 10 years rather than 40 or 50. That's regrettable. The people making these decisions — I can't unpack their motivation or perceptions — but I think their sense of history in terms of the dangers inherent in deploying U.S. troops to deal with street protests is itself a problem. There are parallels between Kent State and Los Angeles. There are protesters throwing bottles at police and setting fires. The Ohio governor called the Kent State protesters dissidents and un-American; President Trump has called the Los Angeles demonstrators insurrectionists, although he appears to have walked that back. What do you make of these similarities? The parallels are rather obvious. The general point I wish to make, without directing it at a particular individual, is that the choice of words used to describe a situation has consequences. Leaders have positions of responsibility and authority. They have a responsibility to try to keep the situation under control. Are officers today more apt to use rubber bullets and other so-called less-lethal rounds than in 1970? Even though these rounds do damage, they're less likely to kill. Could that save lives today? Most likely, yes. In 1970, the guard members at Kent State, all they had were tear gas canisters and assault rifles loaded with live ammunition. Lessons have been learned between 1970 and today, and I'm almost certain that the California National Guard is equipped with batons, plastic shields, and other tools that give them a range of options between doing nothing and killing someone. I've touched one of the bullets used at Kent State. It was five and a half inches long. You can imagine the catastrophic damage that can inflict on the human body. Those bullets will kill at 1,000 yards, so the likelihood that the military personnel in Los Angeles have live ammunition is very remote. Trump authorized the deployment of federal troops not only to Los Angeles but also to wherever protests are 'occurring or are likely to occur,' leading to speculation that the presence of troops will become permanent. Was that ever a consideration in the '60s and '70s, or are we in uncharted waters here? In the 1960s and early 1970s, presidents of both parties were very reluctant to deploy military forces against protests. Has that changed? Apparently it has. I personally believe that the military being used domestically against American citizens, or even people living here illegally, is not the answer. Generally speaking, force is not the answer. The application of force is inherently unpredictable. It's inherently uncontrollable. And very often the consequences of using it are terrible human suffering. Before the Kent State shooting, the assumption by most college-aged protesters was that there weren't physical consequences to engaging in protests. Kent State demonstrated otherwise. In Los Angeles, the governor, the mayor, and all responsible public officials have essentially said they will not tolerate violence or the destruction of property. I think that most of the protesters are peaceful. What concerns me is the small minority who are unaware of our history and don't understand the risks of being aggressive toward the authorities. In Los Angeles, we have not just the guard but also the Marines. Marines, as you mentioned, are trained to fight wars. What's the worst that could happen here? People could get killed. I don't know what's being done in terms of defining rules of engagement, but I assume that the Marines have explicitly been told not to load live ammunition in their weapons because that would risk violence and loss of life. I don't think that the guard or the Marines are particularly enthusiastic about having to apply coercive force against protesters. Their training in that regard is very limited, and their understanding of crowd psychology is probably very limited. The crowd psychology is inherently unpredictable and often nonlinear. If you don't have experience with crowds, you may end up making choices based on your lack of experience that are very regrettable. Some people are imploring the Marines and guard members to refuse the orders and stay home. You interviewed guard members who were at Kent State. Do you think the troops deployed to Los Angeles will come to regret it? Very often, and social science research has corroborated this, when authorities respond to protests and interact with protesters in a respectful fashion, that tends to have a calming effect on the protesters' behavior. But that's something learned through hard experience, and these Marines and guard members don't have that experience. The National Guard was deployed in Detroit in 1967; Washington, D.C. in 1968; Los Angeles in 1965 and 1992; and Minneapolis and other cities in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd. Have the Marines ever been deployed? Or any other military branch? Yes. In 1992, in the wake of the Rodney King controversy, the California governor at the time, a Republican named Pete Wilson, asked President George H.W. Bush to deploy not only the guard but also the Marines to deal with street riots in Los Angeles. That's the last time it was done. And how did that go? I'm not an expert on this, but I assure you that the senior officers who commanded those Marines made it very clear that they were not to discharge their weapons without explicit permission from the officers themselves, and they were probably told not to load their weapons with live ammunition. In 1967, during the Detroit riots, the Michigan National Guard was called out to the streets of Detroit. When the ranking senior officer arrived, he ordered the soldiers to remove their bullets from their rifles. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
CBS News
11-06-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
Former defense secretary's concern about National Guard in L.A. is "loss of life like we saw in 1970"
As President Trump warned Tuesday that the deployment of National Guard troops and Marines in Los Angeles is just the start of what he'd do to quell protests against immigration operations, a former defense secretary cautioned about the risk of potentially deadly consequences. In an interview with CBS News' Ed O'Keefe, Chuck Hagel, a former Republican senator and Army veteran who served as defense secretary in the Obama administration, said his greatest concern about having troops deployed in large American cities like L.A. would be "loss of life like we saw in 1970." On May 4, 1970, after days of nationwide protests over the U.S. invasion of Cambodia during the Vietnam War, students demonstrating at Kent State University clashed with Ohio National Guardsmen. Soldiers opened fire, killing four students and wounding nine others. "When the National Guard opened up on students and killed students, partly because they weren't trained, they panicked," Hagel said. The Ohio National Guard troops were called in by Republican Gov. Jim Rhodes against the advice of university and many local officials, according to Brian VanDeMark, a U.S. Naval Academy history professor. While it's unclear exactly why the troops fired into a group of unarmed students, some testified during the investigation that they felt that their lives were in danger. Instead of leading to a decrease in protests around the country, they escalated further. Many colleges and universities shut down their campuses for fear of similar violence. Now, more protests against immigration arrests have popped up across the country, including in Washington, D.C., New York City, Boston, Seattle and Chicago. The National Guard's training has improved significantly in the decades since Kent State, but they are "still military troops who are fundamentally trained to fight, not to control crowds," VanDeMark wrote for The Conversation, a nonprofit that publishes articles written by academic experts. When asked Tuesday about the conditions for National Guard troops at a House subcommittee hearing, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said troops in the field are "very well prepared" and "responded incredibly rapidly to a deteriorating situation, with equipment and capabilities." But Hagel called the decision to deploy the National Guard and Marines a "grotesque overreach of federal authority" and said it's "clearly politicizing our military." "This is really authoritarian," he said. "You normally — our system works where you have state responsibility, where the governor has responsibility, the mayor has responsibility. We put an emphasis on local control in this country, this issue in Los Angeles is a law enforcement issue. It's an immigration issue. It's not a National Guard or active-duty Marine issue. It's not for our armed forces. We don't use our armed forces against our own citizens, especially you don't use the National Guard." The National Guard is typically called on by the state governors to respond to major incidents or natural disasters. While it's a rare occurrence, presidents have the authority to federalize the National Guard. In 1992, President George H.W. Bush invoked the Insurrection Act to deploy thousands of National Guard troops to L.A. following unrest that broke out after a jury acquitted police officers who beat Black motorist Rodney King. But he was acting at the request of state officials. The rare instances in which a president called in troops without the governor's cooperation included situations in the 1960s when Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson federalized National Guard troops in order to protect civil rights demonstrators and students desegregating schools. Hagel said it's not the role of the troops to conduct law enforcement activities in the U.S. "They're not trained for law enforcement, he said. "They're not trained for riot in mob control." Defense personnel are generally prohibited from direct law enforcement activities, including arrests of civilians, but they may detain individuals temporarily to protect federal property or personnel under "exigent circumstances." "These people are agitators. They're troublemakers," Mr. Trump said of the protests Tuesday. "And if we didn't get involved, Los Angeles would be burning down right now." California officials, including L.A. Mayor Karen Bass and Gov. Gavin Newsom, have also strongly objected to Mr. Trump sending in the National Guard and Marines. The state is suing the Trump administration, arguing the deployment of troops is unlawful and asking a federal court to block them from coming onto city streets. The Justice Department responded in a filing Wednesday, "There is no rioters' veto to enforcement of federal law. And the President has every right under the Constitution and by statute to call forth the National Guard and Marines to quell lawless violence directed against enforcement of federal law." And Mr. Trump showed no sign of backing down from the show of force. Speculating that the LA protests might be "the first, perhaps of many" protests across the country, the president said Tuesday, "If we didn't attack this one very strongly, you'd have them all over the country, I can inform the rest of the country that when they do it, if they do it, they're going to be met with equal or greater force than we met right here." Mr. Trump's comments have raised the risk for escalation, Hagel said. "When you lay down a challenge like this, and then you send more troops in, active-duty troops into a place, then you are really laying out here some very dangerous dynamics," he said. contributed to this report.
Hamilton Spectator
11-06-2025
- Sport
- Hamilton Spectator
25 years after Tiger's romp, a huge fan, Chase Johnson, is US Open's only player of Black heritage
OAKMONT, Pa. (AP) — One of the first memories for the last man to make the field at this year's U.S. Open was watching Tiger Woods. In that respect, Chase Johnson has plenty of company. In another, he has none. On the 25-year anniversary of Woods' historic dismantling of Pebble Beach in the U.S. Open — a milestone win that some thought might puncture golf's stereotype as a sport for rich, white men — Johnson is the only player of Black heritage in the 156-man field at Oakmont . That's hardly the only valid storyline for the 29-year-old former standout at Kent State who: —Adopted a cross-hand chipping style to avoid the shanks. —Beat players like Max Homa and Rickie Fowler in qualifying to earn an alternate's spot that eventually got him in the field. —Made a whirlwind trip from qualifying in Ohio to the U.S. Open in Pennsylvania with detours to Arizona for a tournament, then to Michigan to celebrate his fiancee's birthday. But neither does Johnson shirk from his position at the national championship this week. He is the 2025 season points leader on the Advocates Professional Golf Association, a nonprofit tour that promotes diversity in golf. He landed there after short stints on the Korn Ferry Tour. He also plays on the developmental PGA Tour Americas circuit. A quarter-century after Woods made history, Johnson is not trying to be the next Tiger, only trying to show what can happen for a young player with a good work ethic and a love of the game. 'We're going to keep on working on it, but hopefully I can continue to build my platform and build that platform for other players to just continue to grow the game,' Johnson said. Diversity has been a work in progress for golf for ages — one that took on new meaning when Woods burst on the scene with his Masters win in 1997, then backed it up in 1999-2000 with four straight major victories, including the 12-shot win at Pebble Beach. Two years ago, when not a single Black player qualified for the U.S. Open at the Los Angeles Country Club, USGA president Fred Perpall, who is Black, said it was a disappointment and he found it hard not to wish 'we could just press the magic wand' to make those numbers look better. On the eve of the first round at Oakmont, with Perpall's term coming to an end, he and CEO Mike Whan touted some encouraging signs: Of the 24 million Americans who said in a recent survey that they're 'extremely interested' in playing golf, 24% are Black and Hispanic. Perpall said the USGA's 2-year-old U.S. National Development Program will be the pathway for America's elite for the next 100 years. 'It's not going to be a fast road,' Perpall said of the effort to make golf more diverse. 'I mean, we didn't get here overnight. We will not get out of here overnight. But if you get down to the junior level and you get down to the elite junior level, I think you're going to see a lot more diverse game than you see out there' at country clubs and at Oakmont this week. Johnson's path was literally inspired by Woods. He recalls watching the 15-time major champion not as one of his first golf memories, but one of his first memories of anything. In the Woods video game Johnson played as a kid, the game gave 'trophy balls' as prizes. Johnson's father, Mel, gave out 'Daddy Trophy Balls' as rewards to motivate his kid. Like Woods, Johnson is mixed race. His father his Black and his mother, Cheryl, is white. The entire family, along with fiancee, Katie Howarth, will be on hand for either two or four rounds this week. 'I was a little shocked with my dad's response' upon finding out he had qualified, Johnson said. 'He was like: 'This is amazing. It's Father's Day weekend. I couldn't ask for anything more.' I was like, 'I think we could think of one thing by Sunday that we could get for you.'' Nothing wrong with dreaming big. But in the game he's playing, a victory might also look like a couple of young kids seeing someone who looks like them playing at the U.S. Open — then picking up a club themselves. 'I want to see what he does with this platform,' Johnson's coach, Kyle VanHise, said in a 2023 profile in Golf Digest. 'The amount of people he's going to help and influence will be incredible. Who is the one kid that, because he met you, his life was changed forever?' ___ AP golf:
Toronto Star
11-06-2025
- Sport
- Toronto Star
25 years after Tiger's romp, a huge fan, Chase Johnson, is US Open's only player of Black heritage
OAKMONT, Pa. (AP) — One of the first memories for the last man to make the field at this year's U.S. Open was watching Tiger Woods. In that respect, Chase Johnson has plenty of company. In another, he has none. On the 25-year anniversary of Woods' historic dismantling of Pebble Beach in the U.S. Open — a milestone win that some thought might puncture golf's stereotype as a sport for rich, white men — Johnson is the only player of Black heritage in the 156-man field at Oakmont. That's hardly the only valid storyline for the 29-year-old former standout at Kent State who: ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW —Adopted a cross-hand chipping style to avoid the shanks. —Beat players like Max Homa and Rickie Fowler in qualifying to earn an alternate's spot that eventually got him in the field. —Made a whirlwind trip from qualifying in Ohio to the U.S. Open in Pennsylvania with detours to Arizona for a tournament, then to Michigan to celebrate his fiancee's birthday. But neither does Johnson shirk from his position at the national championship this week. He is the 2025 season points leader on the Advocates Professional Golf Association, a nonprofit tour that promotes diversity in golf. He landed there after short stints on the Korn Ferry Tour. He also plays on the developmental PGA Tour Americas circuit. A quarter-century after Woods made history, Johnson is not trying to be the next Tiger, only trying to show what can happen for a young player with a good work ethic and a love of the game. 'We're going to keep on working on it, but hopefully I can continue to build my platform and build that platform for other players to just continue to grow the game,' Johnson said. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW Diversity has been a work in progress for golf for ages — one that took on new meaning when Woods burst on the scene with his Masters win in 1997, then backed it up in 1999-2000 with four straight major victories, including the 12-shot win at Pebble Beach. Two years ago, when not a single Black player qualified for the U.S. Open at the Los Angeles Country Club, USGA president Fred Perpall, who is Black, said it was a disappointment and he found it hard not to wish 'we could just press the magic wand' to make those numbers look better. On the eve of the first round at Oakmont, with Perpall's term coming to an end, he and CEO Mike Whan touted some encouraging signs: Of the 24 million Americans who said in a recent survey that they're 'extremely interested' in playing golf, 24% are Black and Hispanic. Perpall said the USGA's 2-year-old U.S. National Development Program will be the pathway for America's elite for the next 100 years. 'It's not going to be a fast road,' Perpall said of the effort to make golf more diverse. 'I mean, we didn't get here overnight. We will not get out of here overnight. But if you get down to the junior level and you get down to the elite junior level, I think you're going to see a lot more diverse game than you see out there' at country clubs and at Oakmont this week. Johnson's path was literally inspired by Woods. He recalls watching the 15-time major champion not as one of his first golf memories, but one of his first memories of anything. In the Woods video game Johnson played as a kid, the game gave 'trophy balls' as prizes. Johnson's father, Mel, gave out 'Daddy Trophy Balls' as rewards to motivate his kid. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW Like Woods, Johnson is mixed race. His father his Black and his mother, Cheryl, is white. The entire family, along with fiancee, Katie Howarth, will be on hand for either two or four rounds this week. 'I was a little shocked with my dad's response' upon finding out he had qualified, Johnson said. 'He was like: 'This is amazing. It's Father's Day weekend. I couldn't ask for anything more.' I was like, 'I think we could think of one thing by Sunday that we could get for you.'' Nothing wrong with dreaming big. But in the game he's playing, a victory might also look like a couple of young kids seeing someone who looks like them playing at the U.S. Open — then picking up a club themselves. 'I want to see what he does with this platform,' Johnson's coach, Kyle VanHise, said in a 2023 profile in Golf Digest. 'The amount of people he's going to help and influence will be incredible. Who is the one kid that, because he met you, his life was changed forever?' ___ AP golf: Read more on the U.S. Open at
