[1] Members of the Nixon administration would come to view the events as damaging because the government's response was perceived as violating citizens' civil rights.

[2] By the middle of 1970, many anti-war movement leaders had come to believe that tactics of mass marches that had been used during the past six years would not end the war and that more aggressive actions were needed.

Rennie Davis and David Dellinger of the People's Coalition for Peace and Justice and Jerry Coffin of the War Resisters League began planning the actions; later in 1970, Michael Lerner joined them.

[6] The U.S. government had put into effect Operation Garden Plot, a plan it had developed during the 1960s to combat major civil disorder.

Over the weekend, while protesters listened to music, planned their actions, or slept, 10,000 federal troops were moved to various locations in the Washington metropolitan area.

These troops were to back up the 5,100 officers of the D.C. Metropolitan Police, 2,000 members of the D.C. National Guard, and federal agents that were already in place.

No food, water, or sanitary facilities were made available by authorities, but sympathetic local residents brought supplies.

Police helicopters also dropped tear gas on the university's lower athletic field, where protesters had camped the night before.

[9] On Tuesday, May 4, another 2,000 people were arrested at a sit-in outside the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building, where the United States Army had deployed machine gun nests.

[4][10][8] The United States Department of Justice filed conspiracy charges against May Day leader Rennie Davis, as well as against two other activists who had been members of the Chicago 7, John Froines and Abbie Hoffman.

[11] The American Civil Liberties Union pursued a class action suit on behalf of thousands of detained protesters and ultimately the federal courts, recognizing the illegal nature of the arrests, ordered the government to pay a settlement to those arrested, making them some of the only citizens in US history to receive financial compensation for violation of the constitutional rights of free assembly and due process.