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A community-run event on North Street brought out some ghoulish treats and creepy 'trunks.'
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Pittsfield Community Comes Together to Host 'Trick or Trunk'

By Brittany PolitoiBerkshires Staff
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Participants say it was a nice event for the children.
PITTSFIELD, Mass.— North Street on Thursday night was full of masked, socially distancing trick-or-treaters participating in the community organized "Trick or Trunk" event.
 
From the corner of Linden Street to Bradford Street, cars lined up in parking spots with their trunks open and decorated spooky for Halloween. To comply with the city's COVID-19 Halloween procedures, individual treat bags were made up for each ghoul and goblin.
 
Some trunks offered Halloween-themed pencils, and small toys that could be easily sanitized.
 
The event was planned two weeks before Halloween so that if parents wished to quarantine the candy they received 14 days, their kids could enjoy it on Oct. 31.
 
The event started as a Facebook page made by community members. Currently, the Trick or Trunk Pittsfield page has 81 likes.
 
The page's first post read:
 
"Hey everyone, thank you for being interested in this event. Just for clarification ... this is a community planned event. It is not being organized by one single person or a group but organized by the community. The idea is to run this like a [potluck]; meaning if you are planning to attend this event, it would be great if you also planned to decorate your trunk. It is not necessary, but if we all work together we can guarantee a successful turn out. We decided on this date for people who may want to quarantine their candy for 14 days and let their kids have it on Halloween."
 
The participating cars went all out with banners, hanging monsters, spooky props, and the owners dressing up themselves.
 
Cheryl Cleveland and Vicki Mazzer represented the Kiwanis Club of Pittsfield at the event by decking out Mazzer's husband's muscle car and hosting treats in the trunk.
 
"The Kiwanis mission is to change one community at a time, and one child at a time," Cleveland said. "So this is all for kids and they have been so left out of everything all summer so we thought, what a great idea."
 
Editor's note: an earlier version misidentified the women in the image above.

Tags: Halloween,   North Street,   

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Former Miss Hall's Teacher Arraigned on Rape Charges

By Brittany PolitoiBerkshires Staff

Warning: this article discusses sexual assault. 
 
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — A former teacher pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to three counts of felony counts rape related to his tenure at Miss Hall's School.
 
Matthew Rutledge, 63, was indicted last month by a Berkshire grand jury following accusations dating back to the 1990s of sexually assaulting students at the girls' school. 
 
"Today, Matthew Rutledge was arraigned for raping me. He began grooming me when I was 15 years old, a student at Miss Hall's School, and his abuse of me continued for years after I left that campus," former student Hilary Simon said to a large crowd outside of Berkshire Superior Court.

"After more than two decades, this case is finally in the hands of the criminal justice system."
 
Simon and Melissa Fares, former students, publicly accused Rutledge of abuse and called out the school for failing to protect them. 
 
They provided testimony at his indictment and, on Wednesday, were in the courtroom to see their alleged abuser arraigned. 
 
Rutledge was working at the day and boarding school until the allegations surfaced nearly three years ago. Pittsfield Police investigated the claims but initially concluded no charges could be brought forward because the students were 16, the age of consent in Massachusetts. 
 
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