I’m writing this letter because the phrase “a large brawl overall” in Monday’s Daily Chronicle does not do justice to what happened that night.

At about 1 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 16, a fight broke out in front of the main bar on the dance floor at Otto’s. Myself and two other male bartenders jumped over the bar to try and break it up. The events that followed will haunt me for a long time to come.

While trying to contain one fight, more sprang up. As the crowd backed up, a “circle” was formed and the fighting continued. When one fight was somewhat contained, another would start five feet away.

Even with all our bouncers and bartenders on the floor, we could not maintain control. This went on for about 20 minutes, and in that time there were probably 20 fights. People who had fallen to the ground were getting kicked in the face, and bottles were being smashed on people’s heads.

I wrestled an individual to the ground only to be punched in the face by his friend who yelled at me for restraining “his boy.” I watched another individual with an empty champagne bottle in hand wait for one of the fights to make its way toward him.

As the people came closer he took the opportunity to raise it up and smash it over someone’s head. I attempted to grab it out of his hand on it’s way down but I honestly can’t remember if I succeeded.

And let’s not forget that crowd that I mentioned before. While some stood and watched in shock, others took the opportunity to join in the mayhem. Bottles were thrown at staff from the “circle” and from the balcony above.

One female jumped over the front bar in an attempt to steal bottles of liquor from our stock. A female bartender yelled at her to stop and she came at her with an empty beer bottle. You’ll hear a dozen similar stories from the other employees who worked upstairs that night.

As an Otto’s employee for two years I’ve seen my share of fights. I have never seen anything even close to what I witnessed that night. There was no rhyme or reason to who was being attacked. If you were anywhere near the area, you were fair game.

One of our bouncers required 10 stitches in his head; another had a gash above his eye.
Personally, this has shaken me to the core. I’ve never seen human beings treat each other with that much contempt and hatred.

The sadness sits like a rock in my stomach. I will never work another party of this nature again. In fact, I may be fired just for writing this letter. So be it. This wasn’t a “large brawl,” this was an excuse for people to steal, maim and hurt as many people as possible as quickly as they could manage it.

The DeKalb Police were there as soon as they could be, and thank God for them. And while some arrests were made, I know dozens more could have been for many different crimes. I don’t fault the DeKalb Police at all though. They did what they could in the time they were there. Had they not shown up, I can’t imagine the violence would have stopped any time soon.

This was humanity at it’s worst, and I will never understand it.


Josh Kawka
senior electrical engineering major

All comments are moderated before being published. We will not edit your comments, but we also will not approve those that are abusive, off-topic, attack another poster or contain information we know to be libelous or false.

During peak weekday viewing times, most comments will be reviewed within six hours. For more detailed information, click here.

After submitting your comment, check below for a confirmation message.

• Your name:
• Enter text from image:
  

• Your comment:

* 300-character count. HTML formatting will not display.