Incident

Incident Description

After the Kent State killings, thousands marched down Main street, protesting the Cambodian invasion. High school students joined in. Club-swinging Buffalo police fired tear gas. Rocks were hurled through bank windows. Students were gassed repeatedly. On May 7, 1970, police filled the student union with tear gas and birdshot.

"It felt like a war zone," says James E. Brennan, editor in chief of the Spectrum, UB's student newspaper, during the riot era.

"I purchased 10 gas masks for our reporters so they could work. The police were lobbing so many tear gas canisters. We put air conditioning units in the print offices of the Spectrum, because the police were shooting tear gas in the windows of the student union. We took the staff down to the basement, put the gas masks on, went up, turned the air conditioners on, aired out the offices and put out an extra edition."

Getting gassed, he recalls, "was like getting pepper thrown in your eyes. It had an acrid, sharp smell, worse than onions." At age 20, "you feel invincible. Until I saw kids lying on the floor in the student union with that birdshot in their skin.