Dwayne Foster, president of Alpha Phi Alpha, said that Saturday morning's fight had been made a bigger deal than it actually was because of the videos posted online, and The Collegian's reporting of the event.
"I definitely think videos being posted on the website, even through The Collegian was disgusting," he said. "It only feeds into the situation.
"The guy who wrote the piece [for The Collegian] probably was not at the party. So I felt that, people like that, things like that, people that don't know pass stories around...only make the situation worse."
A video appeared on the website worldstarhiphop.com Monday morning, showing part of the fight outside of the commons. The video, which contains some coarse language, also shows police arriving and someone asking if the fight is still going on inside the Taylor Haynes Commons. As of Wednesday afternoon, that video had more than 196,000 views.
According to multiple witnesses, a fight broke out in the Commons during Friday night's Alpha Phi Alpha party and continued afterward between Boatwright Memorial Library and Weinstein Hall. University police, Richmond city police and Henrico County police responded.
Foster said the fight should not be a reflection of his fraternity.
"It could have been anybody's party," he said. "The same thing could have happened. We didn't do anything wrong. We checked IDs, we checked in names, we had security."
Foster said that there were three URPD officers at the party when the fight started to break out at 1:15 a.m.
Friday's party, which is the third since the fraternity's chartering in 2009, started at 10 p.m. and was free to anyone with valid college identification. Students from Virginia Commonwealth University, Virginia Union University and Virginia State University were reportedly also at the party.
Witnesses said that the fight started when someone flashed hand signs. One witness said that the person flashing signs was trying to provoke a fight, and when his signs were being ignored, he started to fight another party attendee.
When the fighting started, the music was stopped, and the lights in the Tyler Haynes Commons were turned on, Foster said. He said that he did not see the fight, as he was busy trying to get people out of the Commons.
A statement from Dave McCoy, university police chief, sent to The Collegian on Sunday said that "handful of young men were charged and released on a summons for disorderly conduct."
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"There were two specific uses of OC spray [pepper spray] to stop active combatants for the safety of the officers," according to the statement. "There are no reported injuries as a result of this incident."
Campus police would not comment any further on the situation despite repeated attempts for interviews.
Six people were charged and released with disorderly conduct for their roles in the fight. One of the six was the one medically treated after the pepper spray triggered an asthma attack.
Witnesses said that some of the people involved had not been affiliated with the university.
Foster said that there was not much the school could do in the future to prevent these types of situations from reoccurring, except for maybe adding more security to these events.
Foster said that he hoped that this fight would not affect the way people look at other black fraternities, though he expressed concern that it would.
"On this campus, people look at us all the same," Foster said. "I'm pretty sure they would consider this a black Greek problem, but it was Alpha's party. It was not a Delta [Sigma Theta] party, it was not a [Alpha Kappa Alpha] party. They each had parties that didn't turn out like ours."
Alpha will be allowed to have parties in the future, Foster said after talking to Greek Life Director Allison Bartel-Keller.
Contact staff writer Andrew Prezioso at andrew.prezioso@richmond.edu and Keon Monroe at keon.monroe@richmond.edu
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