Via Daily Mail:
Footage has emerged of police officer firing pepper spray bombs into a crowd of students during after a gathering in the snow descended into chaos.
The video, which was posted on Youtube, depicts police officers near a salt truck using modified paintball guns to blast the pepper spray at West Virginia University students crowded around a few houses on North Spruce Street.
Police said the crowd were consuming alcohol openly, sledding, snowboarding and blocking the roadway, CBS Pittsburgh reports.
School officials told the crowd to move so snow plows and salt trucks could get down the street, and Morgantown Police officers tried to escort a plow down the street in order to get pedestrians off the road.
‘We had winter sports activities that turned into criminal behavior and violence,” Preston told the Athenaeum. ‘They started attacking city workers as they plowed the streets.’
Police say three officers deployed pepper ball munitions, targeting the building above the people throwing projectiles so the balls would disintegrate on the building and the powder would fall onto the crowd.
They say the officers were trying to cover the retreat of other workers and officers in the area.
According to police, the incident was declared a riot around 3.50pm and officers ordered the crowd to disperse.
When the crowd failed to do so, officers issued a second notice to disperse, but the crowd again refused.
Police say officers then deployed a Long-Range Acoustic Device, which is a directional loud speaker that emits a ‘steady annoying noise.’
At that time, some members of the crowd set a fire with debris in the middle of the street.
Officers deployed the Long-Range Acoustic Device in a different direction and a large portion of the crowd began to disperse.
One student seen in the video performs the ‘hands-up’ gesture while standing behind a pair of officers.