updated 9:23 p.m. ET Oct. 26, 2004

BOSTON - Hundreds of mourners paid their final respects Tuesday to a college student killed when police fired pepper-spray pellets into a raucous crowd after the Boston Red Sox won the American League pennant.

About 500 friends, family and dignitaries — including Gov. Mitt Romney, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and Boston Police Commissioner Kathleen O’Toole — filled St. John’s Catholic Church for the funeral Mass for Victoria Snelgrove.

In a eulogy marked by soft sobbing from mourners — many of them young friends and classmates of Snelgrove — the Rev. Wally Keymont criticized the rowdy fans whose behavior led to the young woman’s death.

“Why did this have to happen?” he said. “I don’t know why. Some people feel it’s their God-given right to riot, to destroy property and cause mayhem. ... It is destructive and it is deadly.”

Snelgrove, a 21-year-old junior at Boston’s Emerson College, was hit in the eye by a pellet early Thursday as police they tried to control the 80,000 revelers who gathered outside Fenway Park after the Red Sox beat their archrival New York Yankees.

The Police Department is investigating to determine whether the use of force was justified. The district attorney’s office is also looking into the matter.

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