The Mount Pleasant Police Department was called to Pace’s Pleasantville campus when a fight erupted in a series of brawls between North Hall residents and members of the baseball team in the early morning hours of Friday, April 26.

Some involved players have been suspended indefinitely from the team. All baseball players were instructed not to comment by head coach Henry Manning, who was unavailable for comment, and the player who suffered physical injuries declined to comment when contacted by The PaceChronicle.

“Due to an active investigation into this matter, we have no comment at this time until that process is completed by Pace Security,” said Director of Athletics Mark Brown, although Executive Director of Pace Security Vincent Beatty said that the Mount Pleasant Police Department is conducting the investigation as the incident was reported by one of the involved students.

According to the police report, one of Pace’s pitchers told Officer Walter O’Keefe that residents of North Hall attempted to mediate an argument that he was having with his girlfriend when his teammates, who were intoxicated, began to challenge students from North Hall.

Some of North Hall’s residents who observed the dispute between Pace’s pitcher and his girlfriend say that there may have been some form of a physical altercation between the two. The athlete told police that he and his girlfriend were fighting as they were walking back from Paulie’s Bar and Grill when a resident, identified in the police report by the pitcher as Ray, attempted to mediate the situation.

Things escalated when more residents and members of the baseball team became involved. Security supervisor Andrew Elliott observed 40 students about to fight outside of North Hall at 2:53 a.m.

“[Witnesses] kept talking to themselves and after a point they said, ‘that’s wrong, you don’t put your hands on a girl,’ and they went to intervene,” said one RA who did not want to be named.

One of North’s residents said that he was sleeping in his room and awoke to a female yelling “get off me” repeatedly.

Mount Pleasant Police Officers O’Keefe and Luke Oliveri were dispatched at this time and dispersed the students. One athlete pulled the fire alarm in the boys’ section of the first floor of North when security requested that he leave the building, according to the RA. The athlete began cursing and told everyone that he would be back in an hour. Officers saw a student who was telling other townhouse residents that they would meet at North Hall in one hour, according to the police report. The subject was compliant with patrol and returned to the townhouses upon request.

The senior pitcher was observed with a laceration on his nose although he did not immediately receive medical treatment, according to the police report. The pitcher told police on Saturday that he had sustained a broken nose.

At 3:45 a.m. Elliott called police headquarters and reported a disturbance on the second floor of North Hall.

“There were like 12 of [the baseball players] trying to bang down my door,” said one resident, who had an involved member of the prior incident in his room at the time. “One of them yelled ‘open the door, you black piece of s**t.”

According to the police report, several members of the baseball team were trying to enter a particular dorm room although some teammates were successful in restraining their friends to prevent them from getting in trouble.

Other baseball players were disrespectful toward two RAs in North Hall, according to witnesses and the RAs. One RA was shoved by a baseball player while enforcing quiet hours and a different player grabbed a dormitory phone from another RA’s hand and hung it up when the RA attempted to call campus security.

“What mainly concerns me is the fact that [the baseball players] were easily able to get into the residence hall,” RA of North Hall Patrick Dooley said. “What if they had a gun?”

The pitcher, who is a Staten Island native, contacted Mount Pleasant Police on Sat., April 26, and advised that he wanted to peruse a charge which was not specified in the police report. The charge will be pursued if he chooses to follow up with police, according to police.