Uncooperative witnesses and a victim who doesn't want to press charges means there will likely be no arrests stemming from a fight at the downtown carnival Saturday night, according to Sgt. John Peck of the Batavia Police Department.
The 19-year-old victim is a GCC student from Utica.
When police arrived on scene at 9:59 p.m., there was a group of 10 or 12 people piled onto the victim, who was having a seizure, Peck said. Some of the people involved in the melee were trying to help the victim, other people where trying to pull them off. The first concern, he said, was to deal with his seizure.
"It was pretty chaotic," Peck said.
The victim, a black male, was taken by ambulance to Strong Memorial Hospital as a precautionary measure, but it turns out he was not seriously injured, Peck said.
"It probably looked worse than it was," he said, describing the injuries as just a couple of bumps and bruises.
All of the suspects are black males, Peck said.
On Saturday night, several witnesses promised to show up at the police station on Sunday to give statements, but none of them showed up.
That night there were also white youths seen running from the carnival down Ellicott Street. Police pursued them, but were unable to apprehend them. One of the youths dropped a knife.
But, Peck said, it appears none of those youths were involved in the carnival fight and police don't know why they fled the scene.
There was a report of a second fight by the big slide, but when State Police arrived to check out the report, no fight was in progress.
The cause of the fight appears to be something someone said to another guy's girlfriend, Peck said.
In all, five Batavia patrol units, two Sheriff's units and two State Police units responded to the reported fights.
