MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The events Friday that led to police firing pepper balls and blaring sirens at WVU students could have been entirely avoided, according to Morgantown Police Chief Ed Preston.
“We had to clear that street,” Preston said Monday on WAJR’s “Talk of the Town” with Dave Wilson and Sarah Giosi. “People could have and would have gotten hurt.”
Hundreds of WVU students gathered Friday afternoon at the top of Spruce Street, close to the West Virginia University campus. With more snow than had been previously expected followed by two days of subzero temperatures mixed with even colder wind chill valuations, students were effectively enjoying the middle portion of an unplanned five-day weekend.
“The party continued to grow and build up there on north Spruce Street,” Preston said. “It started getting out of hand. The complete streets were closed, alcohol being openly consumed, just building a party and getting a little bit more aggressive.”
Preston said city plow trucks had been attempting to get up the hill to perform the necessary winter maintenance when the jocular atmosphere turned into something else entirely.
Students had been sledding, some snow boarding, and many others drinking alcohol on the street. At one point, someone set a mattress on fire.
“I’m not going to excuse or apologize for what the crowd did,” said WVU Dean of Students Corey Farris Monday morning on “MetroNews” Talkline with Hoppy Kercheval. “They should have moved out of the way when the plow truck wanted to come through.”
Farris said some of it may have been cabin fever, with classes cancelled since Wednesday afternoon and the university closed for the duration of that time until Friday evening.
“I think that was part of it,” Farris said. “Students are like many of us and love snow. When there’s enough snow for us to sled or snowboard or slide down a hill — whether it’s in our backyard or a steep street that no driver in their right mind is going to be driving up and down — it is fun. That’s what that gathering started out to be.”
But once it turned into something akin to “riot conditions,” the situation changed drastically. Now, Farris said the university will have to review the video to see if any additional punishment is necessary.
Preston responded to concerns about a viral video showing an officer who appears to be firing into the crowd. Preston clarified that the officer fired a “pepper ball,” which releases a non-lethal gas, over the crowd’s head.
“They opened fire and they were shooting the walls in the areas above the students, which allows the pepper inside the pepper balls to fall onto them without actually shooting them directly,” he said.
There are reports, Preston said, that a student was injured by the pepper ball, but he said the photos he has seen are not consistent with that type of injury.
“I’ve been shot with those before along with members of our officers, and that’s not what — they look like welts when you get hit,” Preston said.
WVU Police Chief William Chedester told The Dominion Post on Friday that he would not rule out the possibility that a student in the crowd had been hit.
Preston said Morgantown PD review all situations like this, as per department policy.