Cops: 6 injured in C.W. Post dorm brawl

Six people were injured - two of them stabbed in their backs - in an early morning brawl Sunday that involved more than 20 people on the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University, Nassau police said.

The two stabbed men suffered nonlife-threatening injuries and are in stable condition at a hospital, police said. Four others suffered cuts and bruises on their faces and were taken to hospitals, police said.

Four of the injured were C.W. Post students, according to Nassau police.

The stabbing victims are a 19-year-old man from Carrollton, Texas, and a 20-year-old Bay Shore man. Others taken to hospitals include a 24-year-old man from Sarasota, Fla., a 19-year-old West Babylon man, a 20-year-old Yonkers man and an 18-year-old New Rochelle woman.

The fight began about 2:55 a.m. inside the Kings Hall dormitory next to the Kinnick Student Center, Nassau police Det. Sgt. Robert Atchison said. It involved many members of the C.W. Post football team, who were fighting with a group of men visiting the school for a Saturday night fashion show, Atchison said.

Ryan Schlachter, a C.W. Post senior, said he came upon the scene as the fight moved from the dorm's hallway outdoors to the leafy Brookville campus.

"A couple people from off campus let the alcohol get the best of them and it turned into a fight," said Schlachter, 22, of Forest Hills. "There were a bunch of different groups of people squaring up to fight. . . . People were trying to scramble and get away."

Officers from Nassau and Old Brookville police and public safety officers at the campus departments scoured the dorm yesterday morning. There have been no arrests.

Atchison said the men responsible for the stabbing left the campus before police could apprehend them. The stabbing victims and others taken to hospitals all told police they do not know who is responsible, he said.

C.W. Post public safety officers refused to allow reporters to interview students on the campus Sunday morning. School spokeswoman Rita Langdon issued a news release touting the school's "exceptional" safety record. She declined to comment, but in an e-mail said the fracas was an "isolated" incident.

Nassau police asked that anyone with information about the brawl call Crime Stoppers at 800-244-TIPS.

Megan Markus, 19, of Monroe, Conn., said she was visiting a friend on the campus for the weekend and was awakened Sunday morning by shouts.

"Everyone was like, 'Don't leave your rooms,' " said Markus, who attends Keene State University in New Hampshire. "It was scary."