Hundreds mourn loss of student killed by police

EAST BRIDGEWATER, Mass. (AP) -- As hundreds of mourners paid their final respects Tuesday to Victoria Snelgrove, her pastor denounced the raucous fans who prompted police to fire the pepper-spray pellet that killed the college student.

"I don't know why some people feel it's their God-given right to riot, to destroy property and cause mayhem," the Rev. Wally Keymont said. "It is destructive and it is deadly."

Friends, family and dignitaries -- including Gov. Mitt Romney, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and Boston Police Commissioner Kathleen O'Toole -- filled St. John's church in East Bridgewater for the funeral Mass.

Snelgrove was killed last week when she was hit in the eye by a pellet fired by police as they tried to control the crowd outside Fenway Park after the Red Sox won the pennant against the archrival New York Yankees.

In a eulogy marked by soft sobbing from among the roughly 500 mourners -- many of them Snelgrove's young friends and classmates -- Keymont criticized the rowdy behavior that led to her death.

"Why did this have to happen?" he asked. "We need to be able to articulate our anger about this horrible death, (but) we need not lose our faith because of it."

Across the street from the church, a message board in front of East Bridgewater High School read, "Torie, we will miss you, EBHS."

Snelgrove graduated from the school in the Boston suburb in 2001. She attended Fitchburg State College before transferring last year to Emerson College, where she was a junior studying broadcast journalism. Her funeral came three days before her 22nd birthday.

Snelgrove was among an estimated 80,000 revelers celebrating in the streets around the ballpark early Thursday morning. Police began firing the pepper spray-filled pellets out of compressed-air guns when some in the crowd began climbing the steel girders under Fenway's left-field wall, setting small fires and throwing bottles at police.

In what police said was a horrible fluke, Snelgrove -- an innocent bystander to the unruliness -- was hit in the eye socket by one of the pellets. She was pronounced dead hours later at Brigham & Women's Hospital.

Her death prompted questions about whether police overreacted to the mostly college crowd. The department was sharply criticized earlier this year for being under-prepared when riots broke out following the New England Patriots' Super Bowl win. One person was killed and another critically injured when a vehicle plowed into revelers shortly after midnight on Feb. 2.

Beside Snelgrove, at least two other fans were struck by the pellets: 24-year-old Paul Gately of Cambridge was struck in the face, requiring stitches to patch a hole in his cheek, as well as several times in his torso, leaving bruises and welts. Also, Kapila Bhamidipati, of Bridgewater, N.J., was struck in the temple and said doctors had to remove small pieces of plastic from his forehead and found a large piece embedded under his skin.

Police are conducting two internals investigation into last week's shooting: a death investigation and a probe examining, among other things, whether police used excessive force and whether they received proper training in the use of the FN303, a compressed-air gun made by FN Herstal.

Also, police have appointed an independent oversight committee headed by former U.S. Attorney Donald K. Stern and attorney Janice W. Howe, co-chair of the product liability practice at the firm of Bingham McCutcheon. The investigations are expected to take several months.