To say the annual Keene Pumpkin Festival got out of hand this year would be quite the understatement, though it is still unclear what led to such escalation.
According to the Boston Globe, hundreds of students at Keene State College were out in the streets on Sunday cleaning up the mess so many of their peers made. The massive cleanup effort was apparently due to a post on Facebook.
Held every year in the surrounding community, "Pumpkinfest" may have never seen a scene so chaotic. Last year, the Globe reported Saturday, attendees set a world record for most lighted and carved jack-o-lanterns in one place and time with 30,581.
The craziness began Saturday and continued early into Sunday morning with the crowd overturning a car and two dumpsters, slashing tires, breaking car windows, unearthing lampposts and throwing things at police officers. Authorities responded in riot gear, shooting rubber bullets and pepper pellets, tossing tear gas and using Tasers.
CLICK HERE to see video obtained by the Globe.
Skylar Sinde, an 18-year-old freshman, was one of the many Keene State students outside merely hours after the madness subsided to try and wipe away the residue of the previous night.
"It's part of my job as a student to help clean up whatever they created," she told the Globe.
The Cheshire Medical Center/Dartmouth-Hitchcock Keene treated about two-dozen partygoers Saturday for injuries they sustained amidst the chaos, though they were all reportedly treated for minor scrape-ups and then discharged.
"This event does precipitate an increased amount of activity into the emergency room," Peter Malloy, a spokesman for the hospital, told the Globe. "[Pumpkinfest] comes close to doubling the population, and we react as necessary."
Anne Huot, Keene State College president, called the students' behavior "inexcusable" in one of two statements she released Sunday. She also said she would consider reviewing footage from the night and expel those who she deemed behaved the worst.
"They're so disrespectful," Ally McNamee, a 19-year-old sophomore, told the Globe during the cleanup effort. "It's just so infuriating . . . especially because of the amount of people that you would ask, 'Do you go here?' and they would say, 'No,' and then you're just like, 'Would you leave?'"
