A protest turned violent at the University of California at Berkeley, resulting in the cancelation of a talk from conservative provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos.
Livestream courtesy KGO.
Yiannopoulos, an editor of Breitbart News, was expected speak against “sanctuary campuses,” which promised to protect undocumented students in wake of President Donald Trump’s tough stance on illegal immigration.
In response to the violence, UC Berkeley Police have warned students to “leave the area immediately,” as they are bringing in “additional resources.”
KTVU reported that there were no police present when the riots began. College Republicans paid a mandatory security fee but are now asking what good it did.
There were reports of fireworks being thrown and a tree being set on fire.
Hundreds of protesters, some covered in masks, also broke windows and pulled down metal barricades that police set up, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
There are reports of outbreaks of physical violence and rioters attempting to surround attendees, whom they deemed “fascists.”
Berkeley Police reported their officers were targeted with projectiles, including bricks and smoking objects. The university’s police locked down campus buildings and ordered the public to shelter in place.
Tear gas was deployed after many calls from police for the crowd to disperse or face arrest for unlawful assembly.
BREAKING: The scheduled performance by Milo Yiannopoulos has been cancelled. More info to come.
— UC Berkeley (@UCBerkeley) February 2, 2017
Students were not the only ones to have objected to Yiannopoulos event at the university. After the editor accepted the invitation, a group of faculty members urged Chancellor Nicholas Dirks to cancel the event. More than 100 Berkeley faculty blamed the editor for provoking “incitement, harassment, and defamation.”
“Although we object strenuously to Yiannopoulos’s views — he advocates white supremacy, transphobia, and misogyny — it is rather his harmful conduct to which we call attention in asking for the cancellation of this event,” read the first of two letters from faculty members.
