Cell phone video obtained by Time Warner Cable News on Tuesday depicts a fight between UAlbany students on the CDTA No. 11 bus early Saturday — a fight some have called a racially-motivated hate crime. Geoff Redick reports.
ALBANY, N.Y. -- Amid shouts and cheers from the surrouding crowd, a trio of women fought among themselves early Saturday morning on CDTA's No. 11 bus route — and all of it was caught on a series of cell phone videos obtained by Time Warner Cable News.
The brawl has sparked allegations of racial hatred among UAlbany's student population, after three black female students alleged they were involved in the fight and had been targeted by a group of white students. The three women told police they were punched and kicked, while others called them derogatory racial names. Two of the women were treated at Albany Medical Center for scrapes and bruises. Their story sparked a Monday evening rally on the university campus.
The first known recording of the fight is about one minute long, in total. It is not an official surveillance recording from CDTA. Most of the video depicts the backs of two apparent women, one wearing a green jacket, the other wearing a black leather coat. The women's arms and bodies are seeing swinging at a target beyond the camera's view. At one point, a third female participant is briefly seen with a hand violently gripping and pulling her hair. At least one male bystander is briefly seen attempting to break-up the fight. Others yelled and encouraged the fighters to "pull her hair." Once voice commented on the seriousness of the fight: "She just got clocked in the face!"
The videos, each between 10 and 15 seconds long, were originally posted to the social media app Instagram, under the username "Just Justice." The account and videos have since been removed. A student with access to the videos supplied them to the News on Tuesday morning. Independent sources verified the video recording. (Time Warner Cable News edited the video clips together and clarified them for television viewers. No segments of the fight were removed or excluded.)
The CDTA bus, which appears in the video to be at-or-near capacity, was making an early morning run along the bus company's number 11 route, between downtown Albany and the main UAlbany campus. The bus was a 60-foot-long articulated bus, according to officials, built with a flexible center portion that bends as the bus makes turns. According to a witness who spoke exclusively to Time Warner Cable News, the fight erupted in the last row of seats.
The video released Tuesday does not depict the entire bus ride nor the entire fight.
By Tuesday evening, the University at Albany, Albany Police and CDTA had still not released official surveillance video or other private videos of the incident. University police said they continued to investigate, and repeated a call for further video and information in the case. Albany Police were assisting in the investigation of a possible hate crime.
No one had been charged in the brawl by Tuesday evening.
Editor’s Note: The above video contains a series of separate clips posted by the same Instagram user. They were combined for broadcast. The video may not depict the entire incident. No footage or whole clips of the fight were edited or removed.