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Protest caused over $100k in damages to UC Berkeley campus

Scott Morris (BCN)
Thursday February 02, 2017 - 09:17:00 PM

Protests against far-right writer and speaker Milo Yiannopoulos on Wednesday caused more than $100,000 in damage to the University of California at Berkeley campus, not counting more than a dozen businesses that were vandalized in the city's downtown area and Telegraph corridor, university officials said today. 

Despite the destruction and violence, there was only one arrest by university police. City of Berkeley police, who monitored the demonstration once it left the university, said they made no arrests. 

Two other people were arrested this morning when they attacked two Berkeley College Republicans, who organized the event, during an interview. The university released few details about the incident or the two who were arrested but said they were not affiliated with the campus. There were several assaults of Yiannopoulos supporters reported Wednesday. 

Small brigades of students organized to clean up parts of the campus this morning, university officials said. 

The damage to the campus included a burned generator, smashed windows on the Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union, where the event was scheduled to be held before it was abruptly canceled, and paint splashed across the steps and on Sproul Plaza, according to the university. The generator fire spread to a nearby tree. 

The protests drew national attention, including from President Donald Trump, who threatened to pull federal funding for the university. 

"If U.C. Berkeley does not allow free speech and practices violence on innocent people with a different point of view - NO FEDERAL FUNDS?" Trump wrote on Twitter this morning. 

U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, quickly hit back against Trump's tweet, issuing a statement denouncing the violence but promising to stand up to any attempt Trump makes to withdraw funding from the university. 

"Milo Yiannopoulos has made a career of inflaming racist, sexist and nativist sentiments. Berkeley has a proud history of dissent and students were fully within their rights to protest peacefully," Lee said. "However, I am disappointed by the unacceptable acts of violence last night which were counterproductive and dangerous." 

Lee continued, "President Donald Trump cannot bully our university into silence. Simply put, President Trump's empty threat to cut funding from UC Berkeley is an abuse of power. As a senior member of the education funding subcommittee, I will continue to stand up to President Trump's overreach and defend the rights of our students and faculty." 

The protests escalated quickly on the UC Berkeley campus ahead of Yiannopoulos's planned speech at 8 p.m. UC Berkeley police ordered the event cancelled at 6 p.m. after protesters breached barricades, smashed windows at the venue and set a large fire on Sproul Plaza. 

Tense and sometimes violent protests have followed Yiannopoulos across the country. A UC Davis event was also canceled amid protests. A man was shot and critically wounded outside a speaking engagement in Seattle, reportedly by a Yiannopoulos supporter. 

Prior to the event, UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks affirmed that the Berkeley College Republicans had a right to invite Yiannopoulos but discouraged them from doing so, calling him a "troll" and "provocateur" and saying that Yiannopoulos's rhetoric is at odds with the university's values. 

Dirks sent a new letter to the campus community today, condemning the violence and blaming it on a small group of outside agitators. 

"Last night the Berkeley campus was invaded by more than 100 armed individuals clad in Ninja-like uniforms who utilized paramilitary tactics to engage in violent destructive behavior designed to shut the event down," Dirks wrote. 

Once the event was canceled, protesters stayed in the area, ignoring repeated calls for them to disperse from university police officers making announcements from a second floor balcony. Despite threats that chemical agents and batons would be used, there were few police present on the plaza to enforce the order. 

Some event attendees stuck around and mingled with the estimated 1,500 protesters. A man wearing a "Make America Great Again" hat had his hat slapped away and was hit with an egg. Another attendee was doused with water as the crowd demanded he denounce racism and Trump. 

University police said that some members of the crowd were attacked by protesters and then rescued by police. UC police said there were six reports of minor injuries. 

One witness recounted seeing a man in a Make America Great Again hat hit with a pole, knocking him to the ground and leaving a pool of blood on the plaza. Police emerged from the building and took him away, according to the witness, who declined to be identified. h The crowd took to the streets and was allowed to move around the campus area and downtown Berkeley unfettered. Masked protesters smashed several downtown businesses and looted a Starbucks near campus. 

John Caner, CEO of the Downtown Berkeley Association, said that at least 10 businesses were damaged by the protest. Stuart Baker of the Telegraph Business Improvement District said that five businesses in that area were damaged, mainly with graffiti. 

Some of the black-clad protesters tried to intimidate bystanders who snapped photos of the destruction, slapping phones out of people's hands and pushing them away. 

Reports of fighting in the crowd continued throughout the night. Berkeley police said there were three or four injuries from fights and reports of a vehicle hitting a pedestrian near the intersection of Telegraph and Durant avenues. Berkeley police said today that the driver involved contacted them, but no one has come forward to say they were hit by a car. 

Despite the violence and destruction, protesters encountered little police presence until they returned to campus and lines of riot police prevented them from reentering Sproul Plaza. UC Berkeley officials said the campus called in assistance from other UC campuses throughout the state as well as from Oakland police and the Alameda County Sheriff's Office. 

City of Berkeley police spokesman Officer Byron White said in an email that in dealing with the march, the city's primary objective was the protection of life. 

"After the demonstration left the property of the University, BPD had to block several city blocks for persons in the roadway, provide security for medical personnel to and from injured persons, and monitor the march through the city streets," White said. 

In a statement this morning, Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin said, "Unfortunately, last night, a small minority of the protesters who had assembled in opposition to a speaking engagement featuring a prominent white nationalist engaged in violence and property damage." 

"They also provided the ultra-nationalist far right exactly the images they want to use to try to discredit the vast majority of peaceful protesters in Berkeley and across America who are deeply concerned about where our country is headed," Arreguin said. 


Photos to accompany this story can be seen here.