Update: Dan Adamini has resigned from his post as the secretary for the Marquette County Republican Party, according to The Detroit News.

“Whenever you’re involved in an organization, you want to be an asset,” he said. “At the moment I’ve become a distraction, and that’s not helping anybody. I stepped aside so hopefully the people that are so angry will feel that they’ve accomplished what they set out to do, and maybe we can all get on with our lives.”

***

(Original story 2/4/17): In the wake of protests at the University of California, Berkeley, over a planned speech from alt-right white nationalist Milo Yiannopoulos, Michigan GOP official Dan Adamini invoked one of the darkest moments in American history, calling for “another Kent State.”

Twenty-eight members of the Ohio National Guard fired shots that Monday in 1970 as unarmed Kent State students protested American involvement in Cambodia. Thirteen students, some of whom hadn’t been protesting at all, were shot, leaving four dead and nine wounded.

Adamini, secretary of the Marquette County Republican Party, made the abhorrent, dangerous and offensive statements calling for the death of student(s) on both Facebook and Twitter.

The Manchester County GOP tepidly distanced itself from Adamani while insisting he hadn’t meant exactly what he said in the posts, which he has since deleted. He later backtracked in lieu of apologizing.

“What I was trying to get across, apparently very poorly, is that the violence at the college campus in Berkeley was reminiscent of the violence on college campuses in the ’60s,” Adamini said. “I fear that if we cannot get a handle on the violence, we might see the same type of tragic end.”

Kent State itself released a statement decyring the “abhorrent” posts.


May 4, 1970, was a watershed moment for the country and especially the Kent State University family. We lost four students that day while nine others were wounded and countless others were changed forever.

This abhorrent post is in poor taste and trivializes a loss of life that still pains the Kent State community today.

We invite the person who wrote this statement to tour our campus and our May 4 Visitors Center, which opened four years ago, to gain perspective on what happened 47 years ago and apply its meaning to the future. 


This article appears in Feb 1-7, 2017.

Vince Grzegorek has been with Scene since 2007 and editor-in-chief since 2012. He previously worked at Discount Drug Mart and Texas Roadhouse.

6 replies on “Michigan GOP Official Who Called for “Another Kent State” After Student Protests in Berkeley Resigns”

  1. I’m afraid this asshat just might be predicting the near future. Somewhere, and soon, another Kent is probably going to happen, but it may not necessarily be on a college campus, and it may not even be National Guardsmen who open fire on a protest.

    The more likely scenario would happen in an urban setting, big or small, and the shooters will be law enforcement, after being provoked by anarchist crazies. Then the shit hits the fan, all over the country, and all bets are off.

    Do a little homework. During the Depression, the Chicago police lost their cool at a 1937 march by union members (steel strikers) and their families. The march was stopped. Somebody threw something. The cops opened up and ten marchers were fatally shot, most of them in the back, as they ran for cover. Nobody was ever punished.

    Don’t say it can never possibly happen again. It can. And did. At Kent, and in other places. History often repeats itself.

    Chuckles the Clown

  2. — What if you knew her / And found her dead on the ground / How can you run when you know? —

  3. The protesters on Kent’s campus were domestic terrorists, there is no debate. They were professional antagonists that government property. As someone who did a lot of research on the topic for my history degree from Kent, the wrong kids ended up getting shot.

  4. Used to be we could dismiss these remarks as insensitive hyperbole, but now?

    Will Trump order American troops to shoot to kill American protesters?

    Without question. And unlike Nixon, he will BOAST about it.

  5. Hey Trigger, why don’t you STFU and join Roy and Dale?

    My wife was there that day, you sorry asshole. To this day, she refuses to talk about it.

    Even though shitheads like you, who really know next to nothing about May Fourth, will all too readily talk out of their posterior orifices..

    If Trump issues a shoot-to-kill order against Americans, there will soon be Americans returning fire. It’s not kinder, gentler 1970 anymore.

    And Civil War 2.0 may follow.Like the Michigan mofo says, it could only take one bullet to start it.

    Chuckles the Clown

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