Published: November 23, 2009
Streets near the Oklahoma Memorial Union were shut down late Saturday evening after an altercation occurred at a National Pan-Hellenic party.
According to OU Police Department Lt. Bruce Chan, there was an event at the union that more than 600 people attended. At 11:07 p.m., fights broke out inside and moved outside to Asp Avenue. OUPD and Norman police responded to the fight. OUPD said there were no injuries or weapons reported, and Norman police may have made an arrest.
According to a Facebook flier, the party was held by Omega Psi Phi, a National Pan-Hellenic fraternity.
Aziza Kedir, industrial engineering senior, was operating the sign-in table for the event.
“This party goes on every year,” Kedir said. “Once the party began, we had over 400 people in line waiting to get in.”
Kedir said because so many people were trying to get in at once, tensions in line began to become heated.
“When you have that many people in line, there is bound to be some pushing or shoving,” Kedir said.
Preliminary investigation indicates those involved in the altercation were not OU students, Catherine Bishop, vice president of OU Public Affairs, stated in an e-mail.
“The OU group sponsoring the event appears to have followed OU guidelines and had security present,” Bishop stated in the e-mail. “Additional law enforcement helped because we always want to make sure that we have more than enough security to handle a situation if a problem occurs.”
Vince Winston, former UOSA vice president, posted a short video to his Twitter account after the altercation occurred. There were more than 20 police vehicles present and several officers were directing traffic and patrolling Campus Corner.
-Ricky Maranon contributed to this report.
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