Ohio Students Spring Forward, Get Arrested

Nearly 50 people were arrested after two disturbances in this Ohio University town early Sunday, one of them involving a brawl between two fraternities, police said.

The biggest confrontation involved about 1,000 people gathered in the center of the city outside bars that cater to university students, police Chief Richard Mayer said.

When the bars closed at 2 a.m., people in the crowd began throwing bottles, eggs, road flares and bottle rockets. One officer was hit by a bottle.

About 70 officers were sent to the scene of the 2-1/2-hour melee. They fired four rounds of stinging wooden pellets, the police department said.

The other disturbance, about an hour before the bars closed, involved up to 30 members of the Pi Kappa Alpha and Phi Kappa Tau fraternities fighting outside a bar.

At least three people were injured and one required hospital treatment.

Thirty-four of the 47 people arrested were Ohio University students. Most of those arrested were charged with disorderly conduct.