Bowling Green Police Division used pepper spray Thursday around 11:30 p.m. to break up a large fight.
Officers were alerted to a fight in the alley between the 300 blocks of North Enterprise and North Summit streets. They arrived to find two separate groups of females fighting.
An estimated 30 to 50 people were surrounding the groups of females fighting. Both groups continued fighting and ended up on the ground. Some of those surrounding them were recording the fight on their phones.
Those fighting and those watching reportedly ignored police commands to separate, so two officers deployed pepper spray into the crowd. Most of the crowd then dispersed. Two women – Malia Jones, 19, and Ariel Ballard, 18, both of Findlay – were reportedly still fighting and were placed into handcuffs.
Police advised dispatch that pepper spray had been used, so BG Fire and EMS arrived shortly after and began to decontaminate Jones and Ballard, who complained of eye irritation.
Four other females approached police about being exposed to the pepper spray, and they were also treated on the scene.
Jones and Ballard were both issued criminal citations for disorderly conduct-fighting.
