A brawl in a Del Playa Drive apartment Saturday night left the alleged instigator with a head wound from a miniature baseball bat, in addition to an arrest on charges of unlawful entry and felony battery.

Residents said they kicked out a man – who was dressed like a pirate – for groping a female guest at their party on the 6500 block of Del Playa. The man, whose name was not released by police, returned with four other unidentified men around 2:30 a.m.

After choking the same female guest on the balcony leading to the apartment’s entrance, the men began banging on the door, apparently looking for the woman’s boyfriend, said Sheriff’s Dept. Sgt. Brian Olmstead. The woman declined to comment on the incident.

Pablo, who requested his last name be withheld, is a roommate of the woman’s boyfriend. He said he was in his bedroom studying when he heard a commotion in the living room. He left his room and found several men he did not know piled on top of his roommate.

“I started sifting through the pile of people wrestling on my floor,” Pablo said. “I started pulling them off.”

Pablo, a junior mechanical engineering major at UCSB, said the men were “pretty drunk,” and that he was able to help his roommate get the situation under control because he was sober, even though the pair was outnumbered.

Pablo said his roommate, who also declined to comment on the incident, had grabbed a miniature wooden baseball bat and cracked opened the door to see who was banging. When the men rushed into the room, Pablo said his roommate struck the first one in the temple, breaking the bat in half. Sgt. Olmstead confirmed the man was hit with what he described as a souvenir bat. After the first assailant was struck, the remaining assailants rushed his roommate, at which point Pablo said he entered.

The wounded assailant left the other men to continue the fight while he exited the apartment, leaving a smear of blood on the doorframe and a trail of blood drops leading across the balcony. Lisa, who requested her last name be withheld, is a resident of the adjacent upstairs apartment where the man formerly dressed like a pirate – now bleeding from the head – was originally kicked out. She said the man bled on her and that she offered him paper towels to staunch the bleeding.

“It was scary. I thought he was going to get killed or something,” Lisa said. “It was pretty intense – not a good experience.”

After his contact with Lisa, the man waited on the stairs until the other men left the brawl in the other apartment. The five men went down the stairs together and into the street, where police arrested the man after paramedics treated him at the scene. The other four men were not caught. Drops of blood leading down the stairs and out into the street were still visible Sunday afternoon.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Pablo said. “It’s probably the craziest thing I’ve experienced at UCSB.”

Police said the incident drew a large police response – over a dozen officers – because initial reports from dispatch indicated there was a suspect with a gun.

Pablo said he owns a gun – a World War II vintage rifle that he uses for target practice – but it was not drawn during the struggle. However, he said police seized the rifle, his ammunition for it and a potato gun they found in his room.