Lakewood police said Monday morning they were still processing 23 suspects arrested after a Saturday night brawl.

LAKEWOOD, Ohio – A fight outside of a Lakewood concert venue Saturday night that involved around 50 people lasted only a few minutes, police and witnesses said, but left five people injured.

Most of the 23 people arrested after the brawl came from outside Northeast Ohio and may have been affiliated with hardcore bands, police said Monday.

Lakewood Police Chief Tim Malley said Monday afternoon that members of both sides of the fight contacted each other prior to Saturday night to set up some kind of confrontation.

“There were two groups of 50 or more people (total),” he said. “By all appearances they came together through some sort of mutual agreement.”

The fight took place on the same night as Firefest '14, a metal and hardcore concert at the Foundry Concert Club, located on Detroit Avenue near the corner of Coutant Avenue, where the fight was reported. Malley said officers are investigating to determine if the concert and the fight are related.

Five gunshots were reported, Malley said, but no one suffered any gunshot wounds.

Jeff Koteles, a sound engineer for the Foundry, said several shots hit his car, leaving bullet holes in the trunk.

He said he went outside with club security after he heard reports of shots fired and saw the fight begin.

“There were two groups on either side (of the parking lot where the fight took place), they were facing each other and yelling,” Koteles said. “One side had a couple of baseball bats.”

“After about 30 seconds of them shouting insults at each other, they started fighting,” he said.

Police officers quickly arrived to disperse the brawlers and confiscate weapons, Koteles said.

Lakewood Riot 9-1-1 (call 1)

Several people called 911 immediately after the fight started.

"There's a huge fight, shots fired, they all have huge knives," a caller told a 911 dispatcher after reporting the fight.

"Somebody probably got killed," she said.

Lakewood Riot 9-1-1 (call 3)

"I heard the gunshots, I saw a large group of people, around 30 adults," another caller told a dispatcher minutes later.

Five people were taken to two area hospitals following the fight with cuts consistent with an assault wound, Malley said. All five of those injured were involved in the fight and none of the injuries were life-threatening, police said.

The Foundry was shut down for the evening after the fight, police said.

Management for the Foundry said they agreed it would be better to work with the police rather than continue the concert.

Mark Witherspoon, a Foundry manager, said the two sides come from different “crews” of hardcore bands that were playing at Saturday’s concert.

Bands affiliated with the two crews – Friends Stand United from Boston and Swing On Sight Family from Youngstown - have played together in the Cleveland area before without incident, Witherspoon said, and the club had no reason to think there would be anything more than a fistfight at Saturday night’s concert.

Friends Stand United is considered a street gang by the FBI, according the bureau’s website, and several Youtube videos depict members of the crew fighting with other crews in various cities.

Bands from both crews have played on the same night at Peabodys - a now-defunct bar and small concert venue - without incident, Witherspoon said, and groups affiliated with both crews have played at the Foundry before.

The fans “were good to us,” he said.

No Foundry customers were hurt during the fight, Witherspoon said.

Neither crew appears to have an official website or Facebook page, but Facebook users who claim to be affiliated with Friends Stand United say it is antiracist and antifacist.

Lakewood police said it did not have an increased presence in the area during the concert, Malley said

.

Firefest was held in 2013 and the Foundry reported no problems, he said.

Lakewood prosecutor Pam Roessner said Monday morning that police were still interviewing the 23 suspects and charges would be filed after statements are taken.

Malley said charges against the suspects will most likely include aggravated rioting.

Messages sent to the Facebook pages and websites of several groups that performed at Firefest were not immediately returned.