Pepper Spray Used to Control an Unruly Crowd at a Funeral

The funeral for a 17 year old young man was held on Friday night in Albuquerque, New Mexico. An estimated 850 people showed up at Gabaldon Mortuary, more than double the mortuary’s capacity. Attendees were fainting inside the overcrowded building and the Mortuary’s manager called the police for help with crowd control.

The deceased’s mother said that they weren’t expecting such a large crowd but noted that the young man was well loved and that his friends and family were there for him. She was upset that so many of her son’s friends and family members were unable to see him and pay their final respects.

When the police attempted to control the crowd, the funeral attendees became violent with some participants throwing rocks at the police officers. The attendees appeared to be upset that they were denied entrance into the rosary service and had been asked to leave.

Bernalillo County Deputies shut down an entire stretch of Old Coors Road and began to shoot pepper spray balls into the crowd. The services continued inside the mortuary despite the chaos.

As upset as the mother was, it would have been more disruptive if the crowd had continued to get out of control. The dangers associated with a crowd that was significantly over-capacity seemed to be overshadowed by her grief, and the dangers related to resorting to violence when dealing with a frustrated crowd were not minor either. Luckily the police were able to avoid further incident with the use of a non-lethal agent to subdue the crowd.