A woman described Thursday how a late-night house party at the home of a lover quickly descended into violence as she testified in the trial of three former police officers accused of beating a male stripper bloody in a residential Milwaukee neighborhood.

Army reservist Tina Schultz testified Thursday that she was the conduit through which the victim, Frank Jude Jr., and two of her friends arrived at the ill-fated party in the home of defendant Andrew Spengler, 26.

Spengler, along with co-defendants Daniel Masarik, 26, and Jon Bartlett, 34, face charges of substantial battery for the alleged attack on Jude, who they say they suspected of stealing Spengler's badge from his home.

Bartlett and Masarik, who denies he had any physical contact with the victim, are also charged with reckless endangerment.

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Schultz testified she was a college student in October 2004 when she met Spengler and his friend at a bar and returned to Spengler's home, where she had sex with both of them.

Three days later, she was back at Spengler's home for a party, where several dozen off-duty police officers were present, including Masarik and Bartlett.

Two of Schultz's friends, Katie Brown and Kirsten Antonissen, arrived at the party at about 2:40 a.m. with Frank Jude, a biracial stripper they met earlier in the evening at a friend's bachelorette party, and a friend of his who was black.

As Brown and Jude have previously testified, the group was there less than 10 minutes before detecting a "weird vibe" from the mostly white crowd and deciding to leave.

"Kirsten leaned over to me and said 'Tina, are these people here prejudiced?'" the 24-year-old witness recalled. "The mulatto female sitting next to me overheard and said, 'I haven't had a problem.'"

Even so, the group quickly "stormed" out of the house and piled into Antonissen's truck. Before they could leave, a group from the party surrounded the vehicle and accused them of stealing Spengler's police badge.

As the situation escalated, with Spengler ordering the group out of the car and one of the men producing a knife, Schultz testified, she ran back into the house.

"I kind of just wanted to leave the situation, so I went into the house and curled up on the couch," Schultz testified as the defendants, dressed in crisp suits, sat listening, emotionless. "A, I had to pee, and B, I was really scared."

Katie Brown was shown several photo arrays Thursday from the early stages of the investigation.

The jury has already heard what happened next from Brown and the victim himself, who testified Wednesday that several men wrestled him to the ground before proceeding to punch and kick him, despite his insistence that he did not have the badge.

Though he testified that someone put a knife to his neck and a gun to his temple, Jude cannot identify any of his attackers, a problem that other eyewitnesses have also demonstrated.

Though Brown identified each of the defendants in court as the main perpetrators who delivered punches and kicks to Jude's body and head, she later conceded under cross-examination that she could not specifically recall seeing any of the defendants land a kick or punch on the victim.

"I knew what was going on was wrong," testified the 24-year-old financial analyst, who placed the 911 call at 2:48 a.m. summoning uniformed officers to the scene.

Lawyers for the defendants claim that of the dozen or so on-duty and off-duty Milwaukee police officers who were at the scene, the defendants were scapegoated by fellow officers who were under pressure to implicate someone after no charges were laid for nearly four months.

Ten of the officers at the scene were either suspended or dismissed for their roles in the beating. Many are expected to testify later in the trial, and as late as Thursday afternoon, one of them was taken into custody after prosecutors said he was a flight risk.

Even so, the defendants' lawyers also insist that their clients used reasonable force in attempting to arrest a man they suspected of committing a crime. If the jurors agree, they must acquit the defendants.

During the testimony of physicians who attended to Jude after the melee, the team of lawyers attempted to minimize the severity of his injuries, no small effort considering the bloody and swollen images of Jude that jurors have already seen.

Emergency room physician Kathleen Shallow testified that Jude's body was covered in bruises, lacerations and abrasions from head to toe. He also sustained two bone fractures to his face, a necessary element for a conviction of substantial battery.

Shallow further testified that damage to Jude's ear canal from a pen that was shoved into his ear were the worst injuries she had seen in her 15-year career.

But lawyers for the defendants sidestepped those issues and focused instead on the fact that Jude did not sustain brain trauma and that the majority of the cuts were superficial.

"Those injuries to the head are also consistent with being slammed to pavement or punched, aren't they?" asked defense lawyer Gerald Boyle, in an effort to suggest that Jude had not been kicked in the head.

"It's a possibility," Shallow responded.

"And if someone was kicked with a great degree of force to the testicles, that would be a severe, traumatic injury that the person would show, right?" Boyle asked, referring to the absence of permanent injury to Jude's groin.

"I have seen a number of injuries where the initial showings don't reveal the extent of the long-term trauma," Shallow answered.

Testimony resumes Friday. The trial is being streamed live on the Web at Court TV Extra.