Flickering blue and red lights provided a striking contrast to the jet-black sky early Saturday morning as the local police rushed to intervene in a fight that had erupted in front of the Michigan Union.

Four men driving down State Street had leapt out of their car and attacked three people on the sidewalk, one of whom was a University student, police said.

The men punched the student, 19, in the face, stabbed her boyfriend three times and slashed their friend in the arm. None of the injuries were fatal, and the victims were released from the hospital later in the day with only minor injuries.

Police apprehended all four men and arrested three. Police say one 17-year-old man was responsible for the stabbing. He is being held in the Washtenaw Country Jail on three charges of assault. The other two men are awaiting arraignment.

Police said the fight started at about 1:30 a.m. after someone in the vehicle, a green Lincoln Town Car, shouted at two men and one woman walking down the street.

"Can I take your girl home tonight?" they later told police they heard someone shout from inside the car, which had slowed almost to a halt.

When the woman's boyfriend shouted back, all four people inside the car jumped out and assaulted the student and her friends, police said.

In the course of the fight, the boyfriend, 18, was stabbed three times in the back, while his 19-year-old friend was cut on the arm.

Neither injury was life-threatening, but the cuts were deep, police said.

One of the men in the car joined the man with the knife in fighting, but was unarmed. The other two, who had also exited the car, avoided physical conflict.

City police who were driving by saw a crowd gathered on the sidewalk and stopped to break up the fight. The three friends quickly returned to their car and fled, leaving the man with the knife behind.

Realizing that his friends had gone, he climbed into a gray Pontiac Grand Am that had been following the Lincoln and was parked behind it during the fight.

None of the passengers in the Grand Am engaged in fighting, but the car did take him from the scene, providing him a means to evade immediate arrest.

Police found him later that morning at a friend's house in Ypsilanti, Ann Arbor Police Sgt. Pat Ouellette said. He was charged yesterday with three counts of assault and is now being held in the Washtenaw County Jail on bond.

After the fight, the boyfriend and his friend were escorted to the University Hospital for treatment. The student did not need treatment.

At about 2 a.m. Saturday, nine Department of Public Safety and Ann Arbor Police Department cars were parked on State Street. Yellow caution tape had been tied to the trunk of one of the police cars and then wrapped around nearby lampposts, restricting access to the crime scene. Crowds of people gathered around.

As the morning wore on, students returning to West Quad Residence Hall found themselves forced to squeeze through a narrow passageway off to the side of scene. Meanwhile, several policemen stood within the confines of the caution tape, talking among themselves. It wasn't until a few hours later that State Street returned to normal.

Campus was bustling with talk of the stabbings over the weekend and many students wondered if it could portend escalating violence on campus. But Ouellette said it was an isolated incident and didn't represent a trend.

State Street has not been a particularly dangerous area, he said, and police will not add patrols to the area.