Kent State

KENT, Ohio--A federal appeals court has ruled that information collected during investigations of the 1970 shootings at Kent State University must be released to the public even if it was not used in any of the trials that followed the incident.

The decision applies to thousands of pages of documents assembled by the university's police department, the Ohio Highway Patrol, the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, and Ohio National Guard, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported this week.

The documents include reports by investigators and statements by witnesses who expected them to remain confidential