were heading toward town to support the Romanians in the square. By 2:30 p.m., the Chief of Police gave assurances to ethnic Romanian and Hungarian leaders in the square that the police had blocked off entrances to the city. However, unconfirmed reports indicated that the police allowed buses of ethnic Romanians through the roadblocks. Romanian peasants from villages outside Târgu Mureş arrived in the town center long after the roads should have been closed, and joined the Romanians already in the square. Around 5:00 p.m., violence erupted between ethnic Romanians and ethnic Hungarians, breaking the single line of 50 police that the authorities had sent to divide the two groups. Although the police and army had been made aware of the potential for violence by both Hungarian and Romanian leaders, who had made numerous reports of the escalating tensions in the square, the authorities once again failed to respond in an adequate manner to protect the citizens of Târgu Mureș. According to the US State Department Human Rights Report for 1993: The UDMR condemned the Supreme Court's 7 June rejection of an appeal in the case of Pal Cseresznyés, an ethnic Hungarian serving a 10-year sentence for attempted murder as a result of his involvement in the Târgu Mureș incidents of March 1990. Cseresznyés participated in the savage beating of an ethnic Romanian, which an international journalist captured on film. The UDMR's complaint centered on the length of his sentence and on the fact that he was the only one of those filmed who was brought to trial. The court maintained that, regardless of the fates of the others involved, Cseresznyes had received a fair trial and was guilty as charged. Thus it found no legal reason to grant an appeal. Casualties and legal consequences There were 5 dead (three ethnic Hungarians and two ethnic Romanians) and 278 injured. During the penal investigation and the court trials that followed, two ethnic Hungarians (Pál Cseresznyés and Ernő Barabás) and seven others were convicted. Emblematic victims There were victims on both sides, two of which received particular attention: On 19 March 1990, the Hungarian writer András Sütő was seriously beaten when Romanians attacked the offices of the Democratic Union of Hungarians (UDMR). With several bones broken and being blinded in one eye, he was carried to the Bucharest Military Hospital, then, later, by a military aircraft to Budapest, Hungary, where his life