Bangor -
A fight broke out at the Husson University Furman Student Center on Thursday.
But there is no cause for alarm.
It was all part of a simulation designed to give criminal justice students an introduction to assault scenarios.
Officers from the Orono, Bangor, and Hampden Police Departments showed students how to deal with violent situations.
"Today they are going to be responding to a bar scene fight, which is choreographed. That will give them some tools to go in and deal with the problem at hand," said Orono Police Sargent Scott Wilcox.
Professors from Husson say this is a great way to get new students hands on experience with law enforcement.
Professor Cornel Plebani says, "We tend to see very high value for the incoming students to have very early application based and experiential learning opportunties so that we can take what we're giving them in terms of classroom based learning, reading and textbooks, and can begin to incorperate that into real world scenario based training and role playing."
And the students agree. There were so many volunteers that some will have to wait until next time to take part.
"I think this is a testament to the fact that the students are interested in perforing in these types of activities and exercises. at both this week's and last week's, we had to turn students away," says Plebani.
The students involved found it easy to become fully immersed in the role playing experience.
Justin Carter says, "You do get a little lost in the movement but you always need to be able to come right back to it. They get to see how out of control it gets."
"It gets really intense and it really provides them with an array of experiences of what its really like when you're in those kinds of situations," says amanda Kitchen, Hussons Executive Director of Communication.
20 husson students volunteered to take part in the simulation.
Thursday was the second of a three part series.
The next training based scenario will be in November.