On May 8, Mayor John Lindsay ordered the flag at city hall flown at half-staff to commemorate the four students murdered by National Guardsmen during the antiwar protest four days earlier at Kent State University. As young protesters gathered nearby, a mob of angry white construction workers attacked them in a melee that became known as the Hardhat Riot. Not content with their beatdown of the hippies, the rioters launched an assault on city hall. Just as insurrectionists would someday seek to hang Mike Pence, the Hardhat Rioters hunted a quarry of their own: Mayor Lindsay.
