At any time, cut back broken canes to a bud site below the break, remove dead cane sections and canes that are in the way. Otherwise, don't prune in fall unless you have an all-year growing season. Prune in early spring when growth begins. KO roses actually need very little pruning unless you want to reduce the size.

It's also inappropriate to prune spring-blooming shrubs like azalea and forsythia in the fall. If you wait until after blooming in late spring, they will be much prettier.

Somehow, some folks in Tennessee have decided that roses are the same plants as other shrubs. This leads to some who severe prune as early as late September and again in November. This sort of thing takes strength away from the plants.

Roses don't want to go dormant here. If you cut them in fall, they'll put out new growth in two to four weeks, even though it's not yet winter. That growth will probably be killed in late December, and that earlier cutting will have taken away the stored 'strength' that would go to regrow the plant in spring.

I've watched some Knockout that have been pruned three times this fall. I don't know what the heck the grounds crew thinks they are doing, much less why.

What you should have done (in my opinion) was go through and snip off broken canes. Then in late December go in and prune back for height, depending on how high you want them to be next year.

The winter killed new growth that you are going to get, you'll see it contorted and blackened, you can snip it off in winter as well.

But it is a bad practice for sure and one I do not personally follow...
So I agree with what Michaelg and others have said.

Josh