BOSTON (AP) – The death of an Emerson College student who was hit in the face with a pepper spray-filled projectile has sparked anger and questions about whether police used too much force to break up a crowd of Red Sox revelers outside Fenway Park.

Boston Police Commissioner Kathleen O’Toole said police are considering discontinuing the use of the type of weaponry that killed Victoria Snelgrove, a 21-year-old journalism major from East Bridgewater.

O’Toole said she planned to meet with her tactical commanders late Friday to discuss whether to continue using the plastic balls filled with pepper spray, propelled from devices similar to paintball guns, that were used by officers trying to contain rowdy fans that swarmed neighborhoods around Fenway Park Wednesday night and Thursday morning after the Red Sox clinched a spot in the World Series.

The pepper spray balls, which are called “less-than-lethal” weaponry in police parlance, are used by police agencies in hopes of preventing serious injury as they seek to control crowds.

Snelgrove, 21, died Thursday, hours after being hit in the eye with a plastic ball filled with pepper spray during an early morning celebration in the streets after the Red Sox won the American League pennant over the rival New York Yankees.

Snelgrove was hit as police fired the projectiles into the crowd after some revelers set small fires and threw bottles at police, and vandalized property in the Fenway Park neighborhood.

O’Toole said officers had used “great restraint,” but were forced to use the weapons when a small number within the crowd of an estimated 80,000 began lighting fires and throwing bottles, endangering others.

Witnesses say officers overreacted to the situation.

Several people who were near the area where Snelgrove was shot said the crowd seemed under control when at least one officer began firing the pepper-spray balls into the crowd.

Doug Conroy, 33, of Portland, Maine, said he and several other people had climbed the rafters of Fenway’s famed Green Monster when police began to order them back down. He said he saw an officer in riot gear shoot something into the crowd below him.

He said he heard a woman scream, then heard sobbing. “A lot of people then looked over and saw her lying awkwardly on the sidewalk and blood coming out of her nose. She wasn’t moving and we were just hoping she was just unconscious,” Conroy told The Associated Press.

Besides Snelgrove, at least two other people were injured by the projectiles, O’Toole said.

“I definitely felt it was an egregious overreaction,” Conroy said of the police action that night. “I didn’t see any violence around me. People were up on signs … but there was nothing violent going on. It was all celebration.”

Giovanni De Francisci, a 30-year-old Emerson student, said he was about 10 feet behind police officers as shots were fired in Snelgrove’s direction.

Although some celebrants had climbed the back side of the Green Monster, he said nobody was climbing anything in Snelgrove’s immediate area or causing property damage around the time she was shot.

“It was not at all necessary to disperse that crowd. If you want to disperse a crowd, why not disperse the crowd that is overturning cars?” he said.

O’Toole said the projectiles were designed to break on impact and douse the target with pepper-like spray.

Boston police purchased the weapons specifically for crowd control during this summer’s Democratic National Convention. Although the city braced for the type of violent demonstrations seen at other major political gatherings in recent years, protests at the DNC were relatively subdued and police never had to use the pepper guns.

Melvin L. Tucker, a security consultant who specializes in the use of deadly and non-deadly force by police, said the “less-than-lethal” weaponry used by Boston police has become increasingly popular among police departments across the country over the past five years. The weaponry, he said, comes highly recommended by police professional associations for controlling unruly crowds because it’s designed to cause fewer and less serious injuries.

“Sadly, what we’re talking about here is that this type of device generally results in fewer injuries to the officers and the public than the old way of dealing with this type of situation, which was with nightsticks, tear gas and other things,” said Tucker, the former police chief of Tallahassee, Fla., and Asheville, N.C. “This is generally a lot safer. It’s a real tragedy.”

Snelgrove’s death was the second in Boston this year during rowdy celebrations of sports victories. Police were caught understaffed when riots broke out after the New England Patriots’ Super Bowl win Feb. 1. One person was killed and another critically injured when a vehicle plowed into a crowd of revelers.

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Editors’ Note: Denise Lavoie is a Boston-based reporter covering the courts and legal issues. She can be reached at dlavoie(at)ap.org

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