Police Break Up Keene State Pumpkin Fest

Police in riot gear used pepper spray and tear gas to disperse hundreds of partiers at the Keene State University's annual Pumpkin Festival after several people were injured by thrown bottles. Ambulances from several neighborhing towns were dispatched. Pictures posted on twitter show police in full riot gear standing off with students, resembling scenes from Ferguson, Mo., earlier this year after the shooting death of an unarmed black teenager by a white police officer. "Over the past few days, a large number of out-of-town visitors have come to Keene for the Keene Pumpkin Festival," a spokesperson for the university, Kelly Ricaurte, said in a statement to the Boston Globe. "Subsequently, during the course of the evening on Friday, off-campus gatherings associated with the Keene Pumpkin Festival escalated at a number of locations around the city." The Keene police department was slammed by Stephen Colbert and John Oliver for saying the pumpkin festival was the reason the town of 23,409 people needed a $286,000 armored military vehicle.