Jeffrey Miller (shooting victim)

Jeffrey Miller
Born Jeffrey Glenn Miller
(1950-03-28)March 28, 1950
Plainview, New York, U.S.
Died May 4, 1970(1970-05-04) (aged 20)
Kent, Ohio, U.S.
Cause of death Gunshot wound
Resting place Ferncliff Cemetery, Hartsdale, New York, U.S.
Occupation Student

Jeffrey Glenn Miller (March 28, 1950[1] – May 4, 1970) was an American student at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio who was killed by the Ohio Army National Guard in the Kent State shootings. He had been protesting against the invasion of Cambodia and the presence of the National Guard on the Kent State campus. National Guardsmen opened fire on a group of unarmed students, killing Miller and three others, at an average distance of about 345 ft (106 m).

Background

Miller was born in New York, the son of Elaine Holstein and Bernard Miller.[2][3] His family was Jewish.[4]

Four months before his death in May 1970, Miller had transferred to Kent State from Michigan State University. While at Michigan State, Miller pledged Phi Kappa Tau fraternity[5] where his older brother, Russell, had been a member. He and his brother had always been close, and shared a birthday. After his brother graduated from Michigan State, Miller found himself feeling increasingly out of touch with those he knew at Michigan State. During the summer of 1969, an old friend from New York who attended Kent State urged Miller to consider transferring. He quickly adapted to Kent State and soon had many friends, including Allison Krause and Sandra Scheuer, who would both die with him on May 4.

Miller had taken part in the protests that day and had thrown a tear gas canister back at the Ohio National Guardsmen who had originally fired it. The protests, initially against the expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia, had escalated into a protest against the presence of the Ohio National Guard on the Kent State campus.[6] Miller was unarmed when he was shot; he had been facing the Guardsmen while standing in an access road leading into the Prentice Hall parking lot at a distance of approximately 265 feet (81 m).[7] A single bullet entered his open mouth and exited at the base of his posterior skull, killing him instantly.[8] John Filo's Pulitzer Prize-winning photo features Mary Ann Vecchio, a fourteen-year-old runaway, kneeling over Miller's dead body.[9]

Three other students were shot and killed at Kent State: Allison Krause, Sandra Lee Scheuer, and William Knox Schroeder; nine others were injured, including one who was paralyzed for life. The shootings led to protests and a national student strike, causing hundreds of campuses to close because of both violent and non-violent demonstrations. The Kent State campus remained closed for six weeks. Five days after the shootings, 100,000 people demonstrated in Washington, D.C., against the war and protesting the killing of unarmed student protestors by American soldiers on a college campus.

Miller was cremated and his ashes were placed in a niche in the community mausoleum (Unit 7, Alcove H-O, Column O, Niche 1) at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York. A memorial has been erected at Plainview – Old Bethpage John F. Kennedy High School, the school that replaced Miller's high school in Plainview, New York. Miller's mother had been a secretary to the principal of John F. Kennedy High School in the 1960s. There is a Kent State Memorial Lecture Fund at MIT established in 1970 by one of Miller’s childhood friends.[10] The university has also installed a memorial at the spot where Miller died.[11]

Notes

  1. ↑ Resources: People: Jeffrey Glenn Miller dept.kent.edu. Retrieved on 2010-05-29.
  2. ↑ "What I Lost at Kent State".
  3. ↑ "Twenty Contentious Years Haven't Ended the Pain Inflicted by the Tragic Shootings at Kent State – Vol. 33 No. 17". 30 April 1990.
  4. ↑ "Remembering Kent State as an American Tragedy With a Jewish Face".
  5. ↑ Phi Kappa Tau National Site, "Through the Decades" Archived 2011-09-29 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved on 2011-06-27.
  6. ↑ "Kneeling With Death Haunted a Life". New York Times: May 6, 1990.
  7. ↑ Jerry M. Lewis and Thomas R. Hensley. THE MAY 4 SHOOTINGS AT KENT STATE UNIVERSITY: THE SEARCH FOR HISTORICAL ACCURACY; Kent State University Archived 2008-05-09 at the Wayback Machine.
  8. ↑ "Freedom of Information/Privacy Act". Federal Bureau of Investigation.
  9. ↑ CNN Photographer John Filo discusses his famous Kent State photograph. Retrieved January 14, 2014.
  10. ↑ Class of 1971 Kent State Memorial Lecture Fund Giving to MIT. Retrieved January 14, 2014.
  11. ↑ May 4th Memorial Kent State University. Retrieved January 14, 2014.
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