A wedding reception for 700 at a banquet hall in Fremont descended into chaos around midnight Saturday when a small group of men tried to crash the party, and then apparently called in more of their friends who, perhaps all drunkenly, decided to pick fights with some of the wedding guests and allegedly left several severely injured. One arrest has been made, and the story has made it to the Associated Press. In total, the brawl was said to involve 70 people.
"They were outsiders, a bunch of boys my husband and I did not know, who found out about the party and were harassing the girls, so somebody kicked them out," the bride, 25-year-old Manjeet Kaur of Fremont, tells the Mercury-News. "They were really pissed off for being asked to leave, so when the party was over, they jumped some of the guests outside and started fighting."
Some of the altercations, outside the Royal Palace Banquet Hall on Stevenson Boulevard, were caught on video, as was the apparent getaway car for two of the suspects, a white Maserati.
The raw video below and, warning, it contains offensive language and is audio NSFW:
The Chronicle reports that initial calls about the fighting said that 10 to 15 men were involved in the brawl that spilled out into the parking lot of the banquet hall, but by the time police arrived, 35 to 60 men appeared to be involved and ten victims were found injured and needed treatment for head trauma. Reportedly at least three of the victims were over the age of 45.
The Mercury-News reports that two victims remain in critical condition, including Dalit Gill, who is suffering from "massive brain trauma. 23-year-old Amritpal Singh is accused of hitting Gill, but Singh told authorities that he was drunk and does not remember the incident. He has been charged with felony battery, and he was arraigned Wednesday with his bail set at $100,000. He'll return to court Friday to enter a plea. 25-year-old Gurpreet Singh, whose relation to Amritpal Singh is unclear, was arrested and released as his role in Gill's injuries remains unclear. The two men were said to have fled together in the Maserati.
It reportedly took 20 minutes for police to arrive, and at the sound of sirens, many people fled the parking lot.
The bride claims that the banquet hall had promised seven security guards for the event, but only two showed up. According to witnesses, the two guards did nothing to break up the fight and told some of the guests, "That's not our job."
Kaur, the bride, tells the Merc she suspects some of the guests at the party had alerted the first five party crashers that the event was going on, and then their numbers multiplied. "They ruined our party," she said. "It was a huge disappointment."