I seem to recall reading somewhere that they had trashed the downtown area, too.
It was nationally stoked chaos.
Kent is normally a very sleep tight knit town.
The SDS was very active on campus prior to the shooting. They were an extreme, very organized anti-American group of agitators recruiting students to protest and cause trouble. A good friend of ours, at the time, and attending Kent State was very involved in the militancy, the goal was to create as much turmoil and violence against the establishment as possible. The Feds questioned and scrutinized him thoroughly about the shootings. We have not heard from him in years but the last time we did, he was a card carrying communist.