The dead weren't protesters. They were students on their way to class. There was no provocation beyond protesters waving signs. The national guard were at a hair trigger state. A guardsman fired and a bunch of the rest freaked and just started shooting at students at random. Their commanding officer ran around yelling, "Cease fire! Cease fire!" Eventually they stopped shooting.

That woman kneeling by the body was a 14 year old runaway who had just been talking to the young man dying on the ground. The governor of Florida said she was “part of a nationally organized conspiracy of professional agitators” that was “responsible for the students’ death.” In Kent, Ohio, local business owners ran an ad thanking the National Guard. Mail poured in to the mayor’s office, blaming “dirty hippies,” “longhairs” and “outside agitators” for the violence. Some Kent residents raised four fingers when they passed each other in the street, a silent signal that meant, “At least we got four of them.” Nixon issued a statement saying that the students’ actions had invited the tragedy. Privately, he called them “bums.” And a Gallup poll found that 58 percent of Americans blamed the students for their own deaths; only 11 percent blamed the National Guard.

The woman and her family were harrassed with death threats. The local police followed her around arresting her on bogus charges.

Just in case you're thinking things are so much worse these days or that the government and the right wing are more twisted and violent.