after years of legal battles over the 1970 Kent State shootings, what happened?"

read all about it
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings

You beat me to it, Region. I was interested and surprised to note (I was 18 in 1970) that even* Vice President Spiro T Agnew (a trained lawyer) said to David Frost in an interview 3 days after the shootings that the deaths were "murders", but "not first degree" since there had been no premeditation.

*Agnew is the only Vice President in U.S. history to resign because of criminal charges. (Extortion, tax fraud, bribery, and conspiracy.)

Rednecks at the time used to give hippies a "four fingered salute" that conveyed the message "We got four of you bastards at Kent State". Their grandchildren are probably blogging about Muslims and bursting into Latino homes to murder 9 year olds.

He was right.

Even though, at the time, there had been no premeditation to the shooting, the General at the time had told reporter that a 'Sniper had fired on the guardsmen' yet if you look at the records of treatment after the shooting, the guardsmen didn't have a scratch or even a bruise, they had been wearing thick enough protective gear that even the rocks and canasters that they thew and got hit with did nothing to them, the only known injury to the guardsmen were a few cases of Cramped Trigger Fingers. Now, all of this you can look up in the health documents for the Ohio National Guard of 1970, why would the guardsmen have cramped up fingers if they had only fired for a few seconds (13) when it was reported by students at the time that the firing had gone on for a least a minute... This is why I don't trust the Military or any form of it to protect our children or schools. Stuff like THIS and like Columbine, That goes without saying that I DO think they are needed, just not for the protection of students and the like, thats what we have police for, and Thats the way I think it should stay. Making well disciplined men and women watch over average children and other students is just asking for trouble.