MILO Begins Construction On The Wall
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BERKELEY UC Berkeley, the birthplace of the Free Speech Movement, was rocked Wednesday night by a violent demonstration seeking to stop right-wing lightning rod Milo Yiannopoulos from delivering a talk there.
The event was called off at 6:15 p.m. as more than 1,500 people gathered outside the Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union to protest. At one point, a splinter group wearing all black clothing and clutching shields made out of cardboard launched fireworks at police on a second-floor balcony. Metal barricades set around the building also were thrown into windows and a light generator was knocked down and set ablaze.
Police dressed in riot gear responded with orders to disperse and fired tear gas into the crowd. Most demonstrators cleared the plaza around 8:30 p.m. and began marching down Telegaph Avenue toward Bancroft Way. A few members of the universitys marching band joined the crowd, as they energized protesters celebrating the canceled event. Protesters began marching back to campus around 9:30 p.m.
As of 9:30 p.m., police received reports of protesters vandalizing businesses in the 2000 block ofCenter Street. Some demonstrators set fires to banks in the area of Center Street and Shattuck Avenue. BART trains were not stopping at downtown Berkeley station.
Police received unconfirmed reports of a hit-and-run collision involving a white BMW at the intersection of Durant and Telegraph avenues. No victims had been found as of 8:40 p.m.
University police reported at least three people were injured from fights in the area. AYiannopoulos fan took offense at a burning Trump hat, which was placed on top of a pole, and a few punches were thrown between him and a protester.
UC Berkeley police Chief Margo Bennett estimated that at least 1,500 protesters attended the demonstration. She believes that at least 100 protesters were agitators, and that none of the masked demonstrators were students.
It was a very practiced group that came in, Bennett said.
A smaller group of about a dozenprotesters wearing all black with bandanas around their faces held up makeshift shields made out of cardboard as theytossed fireworks at police on a second-floor balcony.
Some protesters yelled over a microphone in unison: No Trump. No KKK. No fascist USA. After the event was canceled, many revelers danced to loud music while ticket-holders to the event watched the chaos in disapproval.
Aheavy police presence surrounded the event venue before it was shut down. The university issued a shelter in place around 6:22 p.m. Police advised the public to avoid Sproul Plaza in the southern area of campus, where authorities shut off lights in the area. The Alameda County sheriffs deputies and Berkeley police officers responded to the university for crowd control.
Tensions rose shortly after a group of protesters wearing bandanas set fire to wood pallets and debris near a barricade. Protesters threw fireworks in the direction of police officers, who wore full riot gear and returned fire with tear gas. A light generator was knocked down and set on fireas demonstrators surrounded the blaze with their signs in the air.
UC Berkeley graduate studentPike Long was glad the event was eventually shut down, but she believes university administrators should have canceled itsooner.
Im very happy we shut the event down and didnt give this fascist a platform, Long said. On the other hand, I am frustrated with the escalation of setting things on fire because ultimately I think its counterproductive to our movement.
David Pedersen, a student fromUniversity of San Francisco, planned on attending the sold-out event with a group of classmates. He watched the revelers, who were mostly peaceful with the exception of some masked protesters.
Kids from this school, smashing their own building, he said disapprovingly. They dont want to talk politically. They just want violence. No free speech.
His classmate Anthony, who would not give his last name, said its like Lord of the Flies out here.
The controversial Yiannopoulos responded to the protesters on Facebook.
One thing we do know for sure: the Left is absolutely terrified of free speech and will do literally anything to shut it, he wrote.
Advertised on Eventbrite as The Dangerous f****t Tour, the self-proclaimed gay conservatives traveling show also included stops at UC Davis and UCLA. A British national, Yiannopoulos writes for the right-wing Breitbart news.
part of yiannopoulosshtick is to antagonize people on the left while thrilling his right-wing followers with expressionsof misogyny, racism and hostility toward Islam, and the brazenness of his disdain for political correctness. His recent actions include publicly outing a transgender student activist at a University of Wisconsin event in December.
Earlier last month, protests caused cancellation of scheduled speeches at UC Davis by Yiannopoulos and former pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli, sponsored by the UC Davis College Republicans, whose UC Berkeley counterparts were sponsoring Wednesdays event at Cal.
Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin spoke out against the event on Twitter.
Using speech to silence marginalized communities and promote bigotry is unacceptable, he wrote. Hate speech isnt welcome in our community.
But UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks, in a Jan. 26 statement, resisted calls to cancel Wednesdays event, even ashe denounced Yiannopoulos as a troll and provocateur who uses odious behavior in part to entertain, but also to deflect any serious engagement with ideas.
He has been widely and rightly condemned for engaging in hate speech directed at a wide range of groups and individuals,as well as for disparaging and ridiculing individual audience members, particularly members of the LGBTQ community, Dirks added.
Since the announcement of Mr. Yiannopouloss visit, we have received many requests that we ban him from campus and cancel the event, Dirks said in the statement. However, Consistent with the dictates of the First Amendment as uniformly and decisively interpreted by the courts, the university cannot censor or prohibit events, he added.
Yiannopoulos supporters say leftist students attempts to silence him demonstrate their hostility to freedom of speech and closed-mindedness to differing opinions. Detractors who call for Yiannopoulos to be barred from speaking counter that his statements conjure up hate and that shutting him down is a matter of protecting the safety of his targets.
Check back for updates.
Source: http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/02/01/uc-berkeley-cancels-breitbart-provocateur-milo-yiannopoulos-event/
