ST. LOUIS — The historic ThurtenE Carnival at Washington University in St. Louis, the largest student-run carnival in the country, had to be canceled over the weekend because of a number of small fights on the second day.
5 On Your Side spoke with WashU students who left Saturday night after the chaos.
Imagine being a freshman at WashU, hearing about this centuries-old carnival, and then as you arrive on the night of April 20, you see a flood of people running toward you screaming in terror. That was the scene for two first years, Isa Wilson and Evan Hunt, unsure what next year might look like.
"There was so much confusion and panic," Hunt told 5 On Your Side on Monday. "People were just running in masses the other way."
Hunt's WashU fraternity TKE raised $523 at this weekend's carnival, and it typically raises $2,500-$3,000 each academic year for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. As the incoming Director of Philanthropy, he said it was tough to watch his fraternity brothers run with their carnival items and money raised during Saturday's chaos.
Both WashU Police and St. Louis police had to be called in after multiple fights broke out, and the carnival was closed early on Saturday. It was then canceled altogether after WashU put out a statement saying "it was necessary" to prevent an unfortunate situation from becoming worse.
It was only the third time the event was canceled in its history. The former two reasons were because of the COVID-19 pandemic and when World War II broke out.
Students instead had to break down stands on Monday after an unexpected weekend.
The cancellation was sad news for graduate students in WashU's architectural program who wanted to go.
"Everyone was pumped about it," first-year architectural grad student Zach Michaliska said. "One of my friends, her swim team actually put like $400 for one of the seats and then it got canceled. A lot of people were pretty pissed about it."
Saint Louis Zoo Director Michael Macek also confirmed in a statement that the zoo received "credible intel" that the fights at the carnival on Saturday were between a group of young people who planned to continue their actions at or near the zoo the following day. The zoo took precautionary measures Sunday "to prevent a potentially bad situation from happening" and had to close its gates about 30 minutes early.
Zoo security approached a teenager who was not exiting the zoo to try and get him to leave, and in the process, they discovered he had a weapon, Macek said. That teenager was taken into custody by St. Louis police.
Wilson said she'd be hesitant to come back to the carnival next year.
"It's kind of sad that we don't know what happened because they posted something about it and it was so vague," Wilson said. "It was like, oh yeah there are three gang fights because apparently there were a bunch of gangs there because it's open to the public. Which I didn't even know about. They didn't tell us it was open to the public to my understanding."
Ride tickets from the carnival were discarded on the ground around campus on Monday.
Students discussed whether if the carnival is back to full capacity next year that there might be a chance it could be closed to the public.
"I'm personally against that," Hunt said. "I like the community aspect and I don't think a few bad actors should ruin the fun for everybody because I know a lot of people had a great time."