I knew about the vandalism but not in detail, so I'm glad someone brought it up. My opinion, fwiw: I think people really want to believe that collective punish

I knew about the vandalism but not in detail, so I'm glad someone brought it up. My opinion, fwiw: I think people really want to believe that collective punishment works, but it really doesn't. People on the right who were excited about the violence at the time wanted the deaths to teach the vandals a lesson. People on the left chanting "shoot him with his own gun" wanted to teach sadists within law enforcement a lesson. But this woman's first exposure to Vietnam war politics was this specific protest, so how is shooting a student in front of her supposed to prevent vandalism? Maybe the violence was born out of impotent rage? Everybody had people on the other side they disagreed with and no way to reach them or change their mind.