Transcription of the recorded statement of John Panutsos conducted by the Commission on KSU Violence.

[Jeff Zink]: Testing, 1, 2, 3, 4. This is Jeff Zink with an interview with John Panutsos. Okay, John, what’s your full name?

[John Panutsos]: John Gus Panutsos.

[Jeff Zink]: Where do you live?

[John Panutsos]: 1638 [unintelligible].

[Jeff Zink]: What’s your phone number?

[John Panutsos]: Apartment 103. 673-2134.

[Jeff Zink]: Okay, John, exactly what did you see and where did you see it? John, just explain exactly what you saw.

[John Panutsos]: Alright, we had a party at the fraternity house, Phi Gamma Delta, down on Rhodes Road. We were all sitting in the living room and we looked out the window and saw flames shooting up in the air from campus, so we jumped in the car and ran up to campus to see what was going on, and we pulled into Taylor Hall parking lot and parked the car there and started walking down towards The Commons. What we saw–what was on fire was the shed– supply shed where they kept all the girls–the hockey, you know, the field hockey stuff and everything on the side of the hill there. There was a bucket brigade trying to put the fire out right there.

We milled around with the crowd there for a while, and looking down from Taylor Hall–the hill down into The Commons–there were about four or five kids running around with torches. It looked like what was a mock effort or something, trying to set the ROTC building on fire. They were running up and trying to light it with a torch–trying to light the side of the building with a torch or something. The next thing I knew, it seemed like–I don’t know whether it was one or two, but somebody threw something. It looked like a firebomb–you know, like a Molotov Cocktail. It was burning and it looked like a bottle. It went through the window–one went through a window at the ROTC and one hit the side of the ROTC building, and that’s when it started on fire. There were thousands of people around. The next thing, the fire truck pulled onto campus and they were trying to fight the fire–trying to put the fire out, and they get the hoses turned on them. The students–whether the students or whoever, somebody was turning the hoses on them, and they were taking the axes off the fire truck and chopping the hoses up, so the fire truck left and the ROTC building was left to burn. It was going pretty good I guess, when–well, finally the authorities came on and they brought the trucks back and tried to fight the fire again. The fire department wouldn’t come back until the proper authorities were on campus. That’s when we left. The building was almost down to the ground and we left then. [Unintelligible].

[Jeff Zink]: These will be some questions from me. This is Jeff Zink. Okay, John, when you came and saw the shed burning, did you see any police on campus at that time?

[John Panutsos]: Nope.

[Jeff Zink]: When was the first time you saw a policeman on campus?

[John Panutsos]: About an hour later.

[Jeff Zink]: An hour later. Would you give me an estimate of what time that was?

[John Panutsos]: Oh, I really couldn’t tell you what time it was. I guess it must have been around–must have been about 7:30.

[Jeff Zink]: 7:30, ok. Another thing you said was that there was a bucket brigade going, putting out the fire at the shed.

[John Panutsos]: Yeah.

[Jeff Zink]: How many people were involved here, do you think, putting out the fire?

[John Panutsos]: Hundreds. Hundreds of students tried to put the fire out. They would bring the buckets from, I guess that’s from Prentice Hall and Verder, and even all the way up from Terrace and down from the Journalism building. They were just passing buckets and anything that could hold water. They were trying to put the–the students were trying to put the fire out themselves. This was the majority of the students. Mainly because there was nobody there to help. There were no officials or anybody around.

[Jeff Zink]: And at the same time there was another smaller group going around with torches trying to light the ROTC building, is that right?

[John Panutsos]: That’s a little later.

[Jeff Zink]: A little later, there.

[John Panutsos]: Yeah.

[Jeff Zink]: Did anybody try to stop them from lighting the ROTC building?

[John Panutsos]: No.

[Jeff Zink]: No one that you saw?

[John Panutsos]: No.

[Jeff Zink]: Did more people, it seemed, go along with burning the ROTC building?

[John Panutsos]: No. No, most of the people that were there were just there to observe. They saw the flames and everything and they were wondering what was going on, more or less. No one really knew that–everybody was more or less–they were just standing around, gaping around in awe. They really couldn’t understand that the building was burning or anything else. It started so bad–[unintelligible] it just went, you know?

[Jeff Zink]: We are now going to cover the events on Monday. John, what did you see on Monday?

[John Panutsos]: On Monday I was in Taylor Hall there for a while. As I came walking out of Taylor Hall, there was mass confusion. Like, I saw–first of all, the Guard started up over the hill. That’s when we ran around into a dorm and came back out of the dorm and we heard what seemed to be a volley of shots while we were stuck in the dorm there. Now, I went back up towards Taylor Hall and I was standing with a friend of mine, John Darnell, and he had his camera. We were standing over near the railing, you know, on the side of the building, like as soon as you come out of the door, and that’s when I saw the Guard. I was there when the Guard shot into the crowd, so what we heard before must not have been a volley of shots. I don’t know whether they shot twice, or what, but I was there when I saw them shooting. At first, I really thought it was blanks or something. The students, they were raised. I saw kids falling from down in the parking lot, up on the grass near the Guard, and down by Prentice Hall.

[Jeff Zink]: To the best of your knowledge, was the Guard being rushed at the time they shot?

[John Panutsos]: No, no, not at all. The Guard was walking back. They were going back and they were almost down over the hill on the other side, back down into The Commons when they stopped up by Taylor Hall. There was a man with a .45–he was an officer and I don’t know what he was. He turned, the rest of them turned, and that’s when they shot into the crowd. Most of the kids were spread out, scattered, and walking away at the time–moving away. There had been some rocks and bottles thrown earlier when they were down on the practice field, but this is when they shot. This is when they fired. They turned around–there was nobody within forty, fifty yards of them anyway.

[Jeff Zink]: Did they shoot simultaneously, or did you hear a first shot?

[John Panutsos]: I can’t say I heard a first shot. I didn’t hear any first shot. It just started. If there had been a first shot, it was only a couple of seconds before the rest started firing. I saw this lieutenant or whatever he was–he turned around first and then the rest of the men turned around, and it looked like two lines. They were scattered in the back, though. And in the front, most of the ones in the front were shooting–it seemed like they were shooting right into the crowd and in the back the guns were up in the air, even a couple in the front. Not all of them were shooting–not even all of them were shooting. There were a few that were shooting and a few of them were shooting into the crowd. The rest had their guns up in the air.

[Jeff Zink]: Did you see anything else on Monday that would be pertinent?

[John Panutsos]: Yeah. I don’t know how important this is or anything, but there was a newsman there. I don’t know if he was from a big station or whether from the University or what, but he was carrying around a .45–or a .38, I mean–a gun. He pulled the gun on someone. Whether he fired or not, I don’t know, but I saw the Guard chasing him around the building–around the other side of the building. We ran around to follow and right there they took the gun off him. They took his camera and they took the film out of the camera. We saw a lot of this. Guards and people–officials–I don’t know who they were, but they were running around, they were taking film out of the cameras and pulling cameras away from people and things like that.

[Jeff Zink]: Destroying the film?

[John Panutsos]: Yeah.

[Jeff Zink]: This is the end of the interview, then, with John Panutsos. That last name is spelled P-A-N-U-T-S-O-S.

×