Must have been those Occupy kids:
"Pumpkin festival chaos in Keene, N.H., leaves plenty of blame to go around" October 21, 2014
This weekend’s outbreak of pumpkin-fueled mayhem
in Keene, N.H., provoked two equally incredulous reactions. First:
Seriously — riots at a pumpkin festival? Second: Seriously — tear gas at
a riot at a pumpkin festival? The college-age rioters may have truly
believed they were just fighting for their right to party, and the
police who responded may have honestly believed that Keene was on the
brink of civil insurrection, but both badly need a reality check.
The melee started on Saturday afternoon, during the middle of the city’s
annual Pumpkin Festival, when a party at a house near the Keene State
College campus spun out of control. Outmatched officers struggled to
contain the disruption as it spilled onto nearby streets. Showing little
respect for New Hampshire’s state fruit
or a community event meant to honor it, the rioters smashed windows,
slashed tires, and overturned Dumpsters. Many of the rioters reportedly
came from other schools; the next day, as Keene State became the object
of national mockery, students from the college volunteered to clean up the mess.
Primary responsibility lies with the instigators, and Keene State College has vowed to punish any of its students who were involved.
With plenty of video of the events, that probably won’t prove
especially difficult. Reflecting the gravity of the situation, on Monday
afternoon the governor of New Hampshire called for any other
educational institutions whose students participated to hold them
accountable as well. The best punishment would probably be to merely
publish their names, ensuring that rioters will spend the next few years
trying to explain any pumpkin-related indiscretions to future
employers.
Still, rowdy students, sometimes displaying less than stellar judgement,
are a stubborn fact of life on college campuses, and overreacting has
its own dangers. The University of Massachusetts Amherst has faced a
similar situation centered around the annual Blarney Blowout, which resulted in 58 arrests this year. A recent review by former Boston police commissioner Edward F. Davis called for the police there to adopt less aggressive tactics.
“The donning of riot helmets and the use of chemical munitions had the
effect of creating confusion and perpetuating the unruly behavior of the
crowd,” the report found.
Indeed, in the Keene case, the mere presence of advanced weaponry only
seemed to aggravate the situation. “Bring out the BearCat,” the students
reportedly chanted, referring to an armored vehicle owned by the Keene
police. The Davis report on the Amherst disturbances should provide some
guidance for Keene and other college towns, too. It turns out that
over-armed police forces aren’t just a problem for those protesting
police brutality against African-Americans in Missouri. Whether it’s at a
demonstration in Ferguson or a Pumpkin Festival gone awry in Keene,
police shouldn’t respond to civil unrest with weaponry out of a war
zone.
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We survived that, we will survive this:
Keene State students help clean up after riot
Time to ban booze -- and the Pumpkin Fest.
"After Keene, N.H., riots, soul-searching and a mortified citizenry; Residents fret over a beloved tradition" by Billy Baker | Globe Staff October 20, 2014
KEENE, N.H. – It takes a lot of work to clean up a smashed pumpkin.
Following a weekend riot, it will take considerably more effort to clean up the reputation of the Keene Pumpkin Festival after thousands of college-age students turned nearby streets into a drunken, bottle-throwing melee that led to 84 arrests, dozens of injuries, one flipped car, one small fire, and a standoff with 200 law enforcement officers that lasted eight hours.
For locals, the incident is a considerable black eye for the city, which is known for its postcard-cute Main Street and its beloved festivals, particularly the main event on the city’s calendar, the Pumpkin Festival.
On Monday, as the city got back to normal, there was much head-shaking on that cute Main Street as residents dealt with TV satellite trucks set up on Central Square and the idea that Keene had become a national joke: the city where they had the riot at the Pumpkin Festival.
“It’s world news. It’s all anyone is talking about,” said Dawn Cole as she walked down Main Street with her daughter, Erica Cornellier. Cole said she could remember taking her daughter to the first Pumpkin Festival as a baby. Now both Erica and the festival are 24, and have grown considerably.
The concern now for the Pumpkin Festival, which this year had over 60,000 people in attendance, is whether it has grown too big to continue.
That was one of the big questions at a packed press conference on Monday featuring law enforcement, city officials, and the president of Keene State College. The rioting — the police used the term again and again — took place in the streets abutting the college’s campus, where many students live. This is not the first year there have been out-of-control parties that led to conflicts between young people and police.
Mayor Kendall Lane said the future of the festival is something that will be discussed going forward, while Anne Huot, the president of the college, promised an expedited process to punish any Keene students found to be involved, including by expulsion. She said she was working with several other New England colleges to identify students from those schools who may have been involved. The incident was well documented on social media, with hundreds of photos and videos.
The word among the student body at the college was one of remorse and embarrassment, according to Conor Aten, a junior at the school. The Pumpkin Festival is known as a proverbial “big weekend” at Keene State, the kind of event that students invite friends from out of town to join. But, he thinks, the advertisement of the fun is what backfired.
“It’s a situation where people thought it was going to be crazier than it was, so they came ready to trash the place,” Aten said as he walked down Blake Street on Monday, the scene of some of the worst behavior. “A lot of people with no affiliation with the community had no problem destroying it. I feel terrible about it. I think a lot of students do.”
Police Chief Kenneth Meola said the problems began at approximately 1 p.m. on Saturday when police had to break up two separate parties, each with over 1,000 people in attendance, to treat injured people, mostly suffering lacerations and blunt force trauma from people throwing rocks, bottles, and cans.
The situation escalated until police, with backup from several neighboring law enforcement agencies, confined the crowd to Winchester Street and Blake Street.
With those crowds having moved to the streets, “there were too many people with nowhere to go, who couldn’t get into parties, so it was like, ‘Let’s riot,’ ” said George Hebner, a 22-year-old senior who said he was at work that day and returned home to the aftermath outside his apartment. He pointed to a charred black spot in the middle of Blake Street. “That used to be my couch.”
The strategy of confining the crowd was credited by many with saving the nearby Pumpkin Festival; several people in attendance said they heard about something amiss in the vicinity only through social media and the presence of police helicopters. But in the streets where the melee occurred, it got ugly, and much of the aggression was aimed at police.
“I witnessed bottles. Full bottles. Full liquor bottles. Full cans of beer. Billiard balls,” Colonel Robert Quinn of the New Hampshire State Police said of the objects hurled at law enforcement. He said it would be an understatement to describe the conduct as “disturbing.”
“The potential for someone being seriously injured or killed was there,” he said. No one was.
Police say they responded with several nonlethal measures, including pepper spray, firing over 100 pepper balls, and 10 “sponge rounds” at those who were particularly aggressive, according to Meola.
As for the future of the Keene Pumpkin Festival, Mayor Lane said it was too early to tell, but that the city would begin a dialogue with organizers and elected officials and host a public forum in December.
Locals like Lily Herkenham, 32, and Scott Silver, 30, who were walking down Main Street on Monday, said they were proud of the way the town and its students handled the messy cleanup. A GoFundMe page has been set up to replace the car that was destroyed, and it had nearly met its target, Silver said. “And there were more students who came out to clean the streets than had tried to destroy them.”
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In this case, I'm at the point in my life where I think the cops should have smashed their heads like pumpkins. The kids are acting like a bunch of spoiled brats these days, and one can only blame the inculcation of Zionist values promoted by the propaganda pre$$. These kids think the world owes them everything and must bow down at their feet.
