Legal Commentary

Kent State Tape Shows Order to Shoot

By Jeralyn

There are a lot of articles this weekend on the enhancement of a 1970 Kent State shooting audio recording, reporting new analysis provides evidence the Guards were ordered to shoot.

"Guard!" says a male voice on the recording, which two forensic audio experts enhanced and evaluated at the request of The Plain Dealer. Several seconds pass. Then, "All right, prepare to fire!"

"Get down!" someone shouts urgently, presumably in the crowd. Finally, "Guard! . . . " followed two seconds later by a long, booming volley of gunshots. The entire spoken sequence lasts 17 seconds.

The tape was discovered in the library in 2007. Here's the recording released that year. Further analysis was performed this year by two experts. [More...]

The review was done by Stuart Allen and Tom Owen, two nationally respected forensic audio experts with decades of experience working with government and law enforcement agencies and private clients to decipher recorded information.

Allen is president and chief engineer of the Legal Services Group in Plainfield, N.J. Owen is president and CEO of Owl Investigations in Colonia, N.J. They donated their services because of the potential historical significance of the project.

Tom Owen was the tape expert I worked with during McVeigh. I spent days with him in New York analyzing audio and videos of the OKC bombing, like the security camera video the Government alleged showed McVeigh at a McDonalds 24 minutes before the Ryder truck was rented. (He was wearing different pants than those described by the employees at the body shop where the truck was rented.) He's very good.

Here's the latest version of the Kent State recording.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on May 09, 2010 (boomark / email).