On Saturday night, Hamilton was shaken by a fight that sparked inside the Palace Theater and spilled out onto the street.

The “Homecoming Stookie,” as the party at the Palace was advertised on www.facebook.com, attracted Colgate students and brought a substantial number of visitors from neighboring schools, such as Morrisville State College and Hamilton College.

Close to midnight, in the midst of windy, rainy weather, the scene in front of the Palace was chaotic.

“There was a huge mob outside the door,” first-year Starr Kelly said. “It was a line of people that was increasingly losing its patience because it couldn’t get in.”

Employees of the Palace standing at the door asked that students form a straight line in order to make admission easier.

“The Palace staff was the cause for all the commotion,” first-year Kismeth Caminero said. “People were skipping the line and the ones in the front were selectively allowed inside by the staff.”

As the crowd grew and became harder to control, the Palace simply closed their doors for the evening. Then, students standing outside saw people running out of the building.

Students who remained outside in line, hoping to be let in eventually, saw a college-aged man standing in the street, wearing no shirt and, as first-year Doneisha Snider said, “ready to engage in a fight.”

“All of a sudden I notice him beating on girls, pushing them and slapping them around,” Caminero said. “Other girls were fighting each other and a Colgate girl tried to break up the fight but got struck in the head. Her friends tried stopping her from fighting and dragged her away.”

According to the Hamilton Police blotter, officers responded to a call for crowd control at the Palace. Units were called in from other precincts to offer backup.

“There were cops around after a while,” Snider said, “But I didn’t see any arrests.”

Rumors circling the event blame the Morrisville students for causing trouble that night.

“My first Homecoming night was ruined,” Snider said.