Howard University officials are attempting to address a security breach on campus after a brawl took place outside of two residence halls at the Washington D.C. HBCU where one student was stabbed and many more were injured, NBC Washington reports.

According to the victims in the incident, the attackers were described as “a bunch of D.C. locals” who made their way onto campus. Howard is located in Washington’s Shaw District on an open campus setting.

One unidentified victim recalled the terror of being brutally attacked by several people.

“I was prepared to die,” one victim said. “When I was on the ground getting stomped out, I just stopped feeling the pain at one point.”

“It was like maybe 5, 10, 20,” the victim continued. “And one lunges at me, so I square up.

“They just started kicking us, punching us,” another victim explained. “We were getting jumped.”

During the melee, two students escaped, while some others were left behind, and one was stabbed by the assailants.

“He got stabbed in the back and he got just beat on by like 30 people, him by himself, and security looked at him on the ground, watched his body go limp, and just walked away. Didn’t call anybody; didn’t do anything,” the victim said.

According to Howard’s student newspaper The Hilltop, the victim was robbed of his cellphone and personal items. He was taken to an undisclosed hospital for treatment. His condition is unknown.

At an emergency town hall on safety that took place on Tuesday (August 15), Dr. Tashni-Ann Dubroy, executive vice president and chief operating officer of the university, gave an update on the school’s response to the incident.

“We’ve been tracking these juveniles, not only on our campus but also throughout the District as well, over the summertime,” Dubroy said. “They’re part of a fight club. They go to restaurants to instigate fights.”

“And the reason why it escalated so quickly and became viral is because that’s part of their strategy. That’s part of what they do,” she added.

Chief Marcus Lyles, head of the university’s Department of Public Safety noted that the Washington D.C. area has been experiencing an increase in violent crimes.

“Washington, D.C. is having a tough time right now,” Lyles said. There are too many guns on the street, too many juveniles that are conducting violent crimes. The last percentage I saw … there was an uptick of 26% in violent crime.”

Lyles also shared that the school is continuing to invest in the latest technology to address safety concerns.

“Over the last eight months, we’ve installed over 1,000 cameras, both internal and external. And we’ve also installed smart card readers for access control purposes. That’s just Phase One,” Lyles said. “These are multimillion dollar projects and we’ve invested heavily and we will continue to Phase Two … in which we will be installing another 1,000 cameras across the university with another 500 smart card readers.”

In the aftermath of the attack, Lyles said that the authorities arrested a juvenile suspect who was armed with a handgun.

As a result of an internal  investigation, the university police lieutenant has been suspended and a security officer who was hired through a third-party contractor has been terminated

Despite the unfortunate incident, school officials are committed to ensuring that the students are safe during the first few weeks of the semester

“We are going to continue with Bison Week and we’re going to ramp up security,” Dubroy said. “We want the students to have a good time and we’re going to put all of the barriers that we can around these safe spaces.”