Multiple police cars were dispatched to the Simon parking lot after several fights broke out at the ThurtenE carnival. (Alan Knight | Student Life)

The final day of Washington University’s annual ThurtenE Carnival, Sunday, April 21, was canceled by the University administration due to crowd safety concerns after several fights broke out and the event was shut down at roughly 6:30pm on Saturday, April 20.

According to WashU admin and attendees, the fight broke out between non-WashU students over a disagreement and sparked concerns over crowd safety. Despite ongoing rumors, there was no firearm flashed or shot as a result of these fights. 

In an email to Student Life, Vice Chancellor for marketing and communications, Julie Flory confirmed that WUPD didn’t receive any reports of firearms or shots fired at the carnival. She also said that WUPD made one arrest for trespassing and failure to comply. 

A video circulating social media shows a crowd of at least eight people surrounding one person lying on the ground with his arms around his head. In the video, the people standing are kicking and stomping on the person’s head, until two police officers break up the fight and drag away the person on the ground. 

First-year Justin Krelitz said that he was working at the Alpha Iota Gamma booth selling lemonade when a series of fights broke out. Around the time of the first fight, he saw people running towards the exit and he was unsure what was happening. 

“Some other people who were working at the booth before me brought up something about a fight [and I] didn’t think much of it,” Krelitz said. “30 minutes passed, and then someone came up to our booth and said, ‘You should go get a police officer because there’s going to be a fight.’”

Roughly 20 to 30 feet away from his booth, Krelitz saw a group of people huddled up with their phones out.

“All of a sudden, they just start fighting. It seemed like there were a lot of individuals involved in the fight,” Krelitz said. “Pretty soon after that, it got shut down, but then outside on the edge of the fence, there was another fight.”

Throughout the incident, he says that he didn’t feel that he was in danger, and he is planning to attend the carnival next year.

“It seems like it was mostly people from off campus having issues with each other,” he said. “I do think [attending] would be a little bit of a risky situation to put yourself in, but I wouldn’t feel super in danger.”

Police officers gather near the carnival. (Alan Knight | Student Life)

ThurtenE is the oldest, largest student-run carnival in the nation and is held on campus each spring, featuring rides and booths hosted by student groups. The carnival was initially intended to be held from the evening of April 19 through April 21. 

Juniors Matt Mande and Sachi Bhagwat, ThurtenE’s Public Relations and Marketing Officers, told Student Life, in an interview after the incident, that roughly 6,000 people came to the carnival on Friday and 9,000 attended on Saturday before the shutdown. 

“We know that it’s a disappointment, because everyone that helped put this carnival together has worked super hard and done such great things,” Bhagwat said.

Mande also wanted to express thanks to the community partners who had booths at the event. 

“We are also greally grateful to our community partners for showing up. We are really happy that we were able to expose their amazing organizations to both the WashU community and the larger St. Louis community over the course of Friday and Saturday,” Mande said. 

Per the Source, Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Dr. Anna “Dr. G” Gonzalez said that administrators were disappointed to cut the carnival short.

“The safety of our community is always our highest priority and we felt it was necessary to take this step to prevent an unfortunate situation from becoming worse,” she said. 

She also specifically addressed the potential financial losses that might affect student groups because they lost a day of business for their booths.

“We will work with them to make sure they recoup any losses incurred from this cancellation,” Gonzalez said. 

Despite the early cancellation, Bhagwat and Mande hope students walk away with positive memories from the event. 

“We want this carnival to be defined by how much work all the student groups put in and the incredible day and a half that we had,” she said. 

Additional reporting from Elizabeth Stump.

Editor’s note: This article was initially posted as a shorter breaking news piece on April 21, and was updated April 22 to include more information. This article was updated on Tuesday, April 23rd to include a response from Vice Chancellor of Marketing and Communications Julie Flory.