Brawl breaks out over saved seats at high school graduation

Video shows people punching, shoving has gone viral

ARLINGTON, Tenn. – A high school graduation ceremony in Tennessee turned into a brawl on Tuesday.

The video that shows people punching and shoving each other -- even pulling hair -- has gone viral.

The chaos apparently started over an argument about saved seats.

[WATCH: Tennessee high school graduation fight]

In the video, a man shoves a woman in a brown dress.

That woman shoves the man back, another person throws water, and then things escalate.

Several more shoves ensue between the two groups sharing the same pew.

The profanity-laced video rolls on, as attempted punches are thrown and others try to separate the two sides as women begin fighting and then tussling on chairs.

Things don't slow down as the woman in the brown dress continues her aggression.

She's seen pulling another woman's hair and landing several punches before the two are separated.

All of this happened before the Arlington High School graduation procession.

"I'm sitting here, going, is this really happening right now, in the church?" Octavius Adams said.

Adams recorded the rumble and posted it to Facebook. The social media site took it down Wednesday.

"I think it was important because most people have (the) general idea that things like that only happen in certain areas. They think it only happens towards a certain race, but my thing is behavior is human behavior, it's not race behavior," Adams said.

In a statement, an Arlington Community Schools spokesperson said:

"It was unfortunate that a couple of adults in the audience exhibited the behavior they did prior to the ceremony beginning and thus has caused a distraction from the celebration of our students' accomplishments. The graduation ceremony was not affected by this incident due to the actions of Bellevue's security team who promptly removed the adults from the ceremony."

Local police and sheriff's officers say their officers were not called in to assist and that no one filed a report, and there were no arrests.


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