Gail Burkhardt
Staff Writer
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Unlike the relatively calm fests at ArkFest and High Fest in Athens, a street fest at another university in Ohio turned violent Saturday night.
College Fest partygoers at Kent State University began hitting police officers with bottles and rocks while the officers were making an arrest, according to a news release from the Kent Police Department. Officers tried to break up the party, and partiers threw more objects at them.
Police began firing rubber bullets, said KSU sophomore Ben Wolford, who is the campus editor at The Daily Kent Stater and went to College Avenue after he had heard of the riots. He is not sure what were in the bullets, he added.
We've seen rubber bullets
we saw paint on the buildings and I breathed in mace he said, adding that he had heard from other students that the bullets could have contained mace or paint.
According to The Associated Press, police officers used baton rounds and pepper spray in order to control the crowd.
Partygoers then began to build up several fires, which the fire department had to come and put out.
About 20 Kent police officers moved students out of the way so firefighters could reach a pile of couches, other furniture and lumber burning on the other side of College Avenue, said Capt. John Tosko of the Kent Fire Department.
It's probably one of the bigger (fires) we've had in a while said Tosko, adding that students threw beer bottles and rocks at firefighters attempting to extinguish the flames.
About 53 people were arrested, according to the news release.
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Jessie Balmert
