By JOHN T. WARD
Three suspects and two Red Bank cops wound up in the emergency room early Sunday morning as a result of another closing-time brawl among patrons of the nightclub Fixx, police said Tuesday.
Multiple fights, which occurred during a downpour around 2 a.m., yielded a host of criminal charges.
Among them: escaping custody, for suspect who fled with his hands cuffed behind him.
Captain Darren McConnell tells redbankgreen that patrol officers came upon the scene of several men fighting in Boat Club Way, adjacent to the bar, as the bar was letting out.
While police attempted to quell that fight, several others broke out in the English Plaza parking lot, across and down West Front Street from the bar, said McConnell.
“It ended up being a pretty good melee” that took seven officers, and the use of pepper spray, to bring under control, said McConnell.
Two officers, Patrolmen Stan Ballmer and Jhontan Quispe, ended up in the emergency room at Riverview Medical Center with minor injuries, one relating to pepper spray.
All three suspects also ended up there. One, Rance Purnell, 21, of Asbury Park,was briefly admitted to the hospital with a head injury, McConnell said.
Purnell, like the other two arrestees, was booked for fighting and resisting arrest. He was also charged with escape for fleeing after he was handcuffed. Officers found him hiding in Riverside Gardens Park, McConnell said.
Also charged were Kevin King, 24, of Red Bank, and Tyron Whitley, 26, of Eatontown.
Ballmer, Quispe and Patrolwoman Heather Pubylski made the arrests.
The brawl was reminiscent of a donnybrook that occurred in October 2007, when Fixx was known as Chubby’s; that one that took cops from several towns to bring under control, McConnell said, though no backup was called in this case.
Fixx has been on the radar of local officials for years. In 2009, the borough council banned ‘college nights, a move clearly aimed at Chubby’s, which allowed people under the legal drinking age of 21 into the club.
Two years later, the council gave Fixx a reprieve on a license action to get its chronic problems of patron behavior under control after owner Mike Gilson negotiated a deal with now-deceased police Chief Steve McCarthy.
McConnell said Sunday’s fighting was clearly among patrons emerging from Fixx.
“We are investigating any tie-backs to the bar and possible violations,” McConnell said.
