‘Riots’ at the Pumpkin Festival

Police dressed in riot gear deal with hordes of college-aged students on Winchester Street in Keene during the Pumpkin Festival on Saturday, Oct. 18, 2014. Video by Kaitlyn Coogan / Sentinel Staff

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*Keene State Students May Be Expelled After Saturday Riots

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“We are mindful that Keene State students played a part in this behavior and we intend to hold those individuals accountable for their actions,” Huot wrote in an earlier statement Saturday. “We deplore the actions of those whose only purpose was to cause mayhem…We can expect that the promotion by individuals and organizations of Keene and the Pumpkin Festival as a destination for destructive and raucous behavior, will only increase. And we are certain that the negative behavior will continue if nothing changes.”

Keene’s police department was lampooned on both the Colbert Report and Last Week Tonight with Jon Oliver (starts at 7:18) after citing the town’s annual Pumpkin Fest as one reason it needed a surplus $286,000 armored vehicle from the Pentagon.