SAN FRANCISCO (Diya TV) — A protest at UC Berkeley over a scheduled appearance by Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos turned fiery and violent Wednesday night, and led the university to cancel the event and rush the Greek-born British journalist off campus.
Even after the event’s cancelation, protestors began to flood the streets of downtown Berkeley, confronting drivers, fighting, smashing storefront windows and setting fires.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6gl-iHb1gA
The trouble first began around 6 p.m. local time, two hours before the gay conservative journalist was scheduled to begin his speech inside the university’s student union building. Protestors assembled outside the building, and began hurling fireworks and pulling down the metal barricades police had set up to prevent them from rushing inside. Windows were also smashed and fires were set outside the building during the protests.
Police quickly evacuated Yiannopoulos for his own safety.
Berkeley police said five people were injured and some people, including a man who said he had hoped to see Yiannopoulos speak, were seen with their faces bloodied. There were no arrests.
“This is what tolerance looks like at UC Berkeley,” Mike Wright of Berkeley College Republicans, the group that invited Yiannopoulos to the campus, said outside the student union building as the chaos surrounded him.
University officials had earlier rejected requests to cancel Yiannopoulos’ appearance. In a letter sent to the campus community last week, Chancellor Nicholas Dirks said, “The U.S. Constitution prohibits UC Berkeley, as a public institution, from banning expression based on its content or viewpoints, even when those viewpoints are hateful or discriminatory.”
Protesters argued that what Yiannopoulos specializes in is hate speech, and that it didn’t deserve to be protected. He has been making the rounds at college campuses across the country with his “Dangerous Faggot” talks, specializing in remarks meant to insult, offend and disgust liberals who disagree with his ideas.
Berkeley College Republicans said all 500 tickets had been sold for the event, Yiannopoulos was expected to use the event to kick off a campaign against “sanctuary campuses” that have vowed to protect students in the country illegally as President Trump cracks down on illegal immigration.
Campus police had been hoping for a more peaceful night than the one Yiannopoulos had at UC Davis on Jan. 13, where protestors, too, overwhelmed the barricades and shut down the event.
