Transcripts For KGO ABC7 News 600PM 20170202

Off, fireworks it appears, one quite loud that sounded like a cherry bomb right before it came live. You can see things are getting pretty tense. Well let you listen to this crowd. They are chanting and throwing things and these are the protesters that just arrived in the last few minutes with masks on. And again, they just tore the barricades away. No milo, in trump, no bashes usa. Reporter these berkeley protesters are hopingcounter parts did three weeks ago, shut down a planned appearance by milo. Everything thats happened with the past election and just this person coming to our campus feels very like an invasion and very disrespectful. We understand you might not agree with him and so we invite you to protest and encourage you to protest but we dont encourage you to use violence. Im tired of being polite about radical islam and islam. Reporter many believe his message is hate. It makes people uncomfortable and attacks their identities and who they are as a person and i know there is free speech, but i dont really see the case for thi this. Reporter last month, his planned appearance at u. C. Davis was cancelled at the last minute due to security concerns. Were confident we have the plans and the pieces in place reporter u. C. Berkeley will bring in outside Police Agents to keep the same thing from happening here. Well challenge the campus, our peers, administrators to keep an open hind and hear him out. Reporter again, were back live. The tension, the you can see the crowd moving toward the building. We apologize if you see signs with profanity but this is a breaking event and a lot of folks out here upset that this man is planning to speak tonight. Weve heard a lot about free speech. They have said they recognize right to free speech, the First Amendment but they reject this mans right to speak here tonight at u. C. Berkeley and again, tensions increasing here as this crowd moves toward the building. Live at u. C. Berkeley, lights just went out. Thanks very much. Lets take you live to sky 7 again looking at pictures of the plaza. You can see that may be a fire extinguisher that somebody is spraying right there. You can see barricades are being moved. Firecrackers being shot off there on the right hand side of your screen and a lot of people are gathered. Yeah, all of this, of course, in protest of the speaker milo miloyiannopoulos and as laura said in the live report in the last few minutes, a couple minutes before we came on the air, we noticed the protest turned a little bit and we came a little more agitated. Tempers began to flair a little more and emotios ran a little bit higher. Yeah, protesters had lit some palates on fire near dana street and also, we saw large group of people walking toward the parking garage where yiannopoulos is expected to arrive. Hes a news editor with a news and opinion website. Hes known for extreme views on islam, social justice, Political Correctness and thats why were seeing a huge crowd gathered protesting his speech. As you can imagine, things are very tense there. The University Said they would bring in extra security to try to keep everyone safe and the intention on the part of the university was to have this event go on as planned, but recently, another speech that he was going to give on another campus was shut down by protesters for fear there would be safety problems as a result. You see prison there, look like they are in riot gear but the University Said they will bring extra Police Officers on campus. What you mentioned was yesterdays scheduled speech. It was sold out and put on by the College Republicans. Everywhere he goes, controversy follows. Now you can see people running around and fire and smoke. Its hard to tell in the dark but thats what it appears to be. Its hard to tell if its smoke or fire extinguisher that we saw them using earlier but, you know, of usually we hope its not fire because that could be extremely dangerous. Someone threw a barricade toward the area. You can see that light pole they are standing near it pushing it. Apparently Laura Anthony is on the ground and said shes hearing fire alarms, smoke alarms going off right now. Look at what they are doing to the light stand there, tearing that down. Not good. We dont know how many a great number of these people, hundreds have gathered, how many are students and who came from elsewhere who are not students at berkeley but you can see this situation is getting more intense by the moment, as you look looiive from sky 7. Hundreds of people came out who say they believe in free speech and the First Amendment but do not want to hear this particular speaker tonight and they are trying to shut it down and keep him from saying whatever he came to uc berkeley to say. Yeah, laura mentioned that a group in black masks showed up and thats when things really started to get tense. If you are just joining us, this is happening on bencroft way. They lit laura, what are you hearing and seeing . Reporter were not going turn the light on because we dont want to attract too much attention to us. This is the front of the Student Union here at sproul plaza. The guys with the masks have taken barricades and trying to throw them through the windows here. Inside we can see police in riot gear. Just standing there at the moment looking like they are ready to confront them, if in fact, they do break the windows here. Again, in the last 20 minutes or so, this situation has really changed. The tension has increased. As i said, there was a group of masked demonstrators and at that point, fires were set. As you can see there was flame fire being thrown at the building. Looks like fireworks could be flairs, im not sure. Again, the situation changed dramatically in just the past 10, 15 minutes. Laura, can you tell obviously there are a great number of students there. Can you tell if some of the other demonstrators are not students . Reporter well, i cant tell, dan, because they have masks on. So at this point, we dont know. Somewhat reminiscing of what weve seen in oakland and downtown oakland, separate group seems to come in with masks on and thats when things sometimes change direction. Thats what im getting at. Im wondering if some of these protesters are some of the same groups that have gone around to other demonstrations around the bay area. Laura, were hearing reporter cant say for sure. Go ahead. Yeah, i was going to say were hearing the alarms going off. Are you seeing some of what appears to be smoke coming out lie were seeing from sky 7 . Reporter yes, we are seeing quite a bit of smoke here. My impression is its flairs or fireworks that they are throwing in the direction of the building, and youre also hearing the smoke alarms from the building. Big cheer here. Im not sure what thats about. Nothing is on fire, as best you can tell, laura . The building is not on fire. Reporter from my Vantage Point, i do not think so, dan. I think the smoke youre seeing is fireworks and or flairs. Okay. Did you get a chance to talk to any of the people out there before all this sort of chaos started erupting . Were they hoping to keep everything peaceful tonight . Reporter i cant say that. I can say they were trying to certainly shut down the planned event. Im not sure they were planning to do it in any way with violence. I think it was more about disrupt. I think this maybe takes it to another level. Yeah. Were looking at live pictures on the balcony of police in riot gear with some sort of weapon in their hands, presumably maybe a bean bag cannon or something of that nature but they do look like even the authorities are getting more tense. Reporter right. I can see well, i can tell you from the ground here, we can see across the way. Im not sure if randy davis or photographer can get a shot but there is a garbage can thats on fire by the front of the building, and then right above that is youre talking about those Police Officers in riot gear on the balcony. They have also turned off the lighting out here. We have some lights we brought but turned those off, as well and now it seems officially they have turned off the lights out here, maybe so that they can see what is going on without the glare of the lights. We see these officers on the balcony actually taking aim. They vinhavent fired anything but pointing at the crowd and looks like a couple of them are taking aim at someone or something. Have you heard any orders to disburse . Reporter no. No orders to disburse. No communication at all from the police at this point. Yet, normally you would hear some sort of order to disburse before they would take any sort of action. It looks like police are very deliberately trying to keep their distance and not escalate this in any way. Is that your impression there . Reporter yes, i mean, they are not someone threw what looks like a firework at the police. Now it looks like they are throwing things at the balcony and many in the crowd now are moving in my direction away from this activity. Reporter laura, please stay safe and let us know if you got to go and get out of the area. Taking a look at this. People around you, are they running in dierchfferent direct. Reporter yes, they are trying to run from what appears to be fireworks and we have a group of individuals here with masks and screams and that was a rather large firework or i believe at this point the police are firing. Yeah, i see the people tear gas. Yeah. Yeah. Looks like they have shields these guys with the masks and bandannas and some sort of home made shield. Right. Right. They are they have their shields facing off with the police so im going to step back. How far are they from you . Reporter they are about exactly. Goodness. Reporter right about just to give you an idea of where we are, we are on the steps of sproul plaza, steps of sproul hall. It seems like that big crowd there, they are for the most part staying. People arent leaving. Is that what youre seeing, laura . Reporter yeah, they are moving back but not leaving. It looks like the ones to the right reporter they are kind of go ahead, laura. Reporter i was going to say, they are kind of leaving it to the protesters with the masks and the shields to take it from here. Yeah, the others look like they are just standing with their signs and protesting but not causing any of the trouble. Reporter we see a lot of smoke. Looks like tear gas. Hard to tell. Or a flaire. Hard to tell. I think youre right, ama. Thats something burning in the center. If youre just joining us, Laura Anthony is joining us from sproul plaza. There was supposed to be a speech by Milo Yiannopoulos which is known for having extreme views. We have a huge crowd out there and as laura mentioned around 5 45 a group with masks on came and things started to get disruptive and tense. And clearly has escalated, although now it looks like police have managed to get people to move back at least but you see these people with the shields, they have been the ones look like they have been throwing the fireworks on the balcony. Laura, stay safe and if it gets intense, move back. I know your photographer, youll have to drag him away. Hes intrepid, as are you. Reporter yeah, i think this isnt i think the tear gas is out. Oh, can you smell it . Reporter yes. I think im going to step away here. Absolutely, Laura Anthony. Were getting a close up look. Weve also been looking from a safer Vantage Point from sky 7 and seeing the big crowd and thats where we saw the palates that protesters had also set on fire. Here is the live look. Its dark. But it is safe where Laura Anthony is on the ground with her photographer. Weve been seeing a lot of action in the past half an hour. We sure have. If you have not ever experienced tear gas, it is debilitating and very uncomfortable and you cant really continue to function once its gotten into your eyes. Its pretty tough to deal with. Again, just an enormous police presence, as well as hundreds of prope protesters and we were told by Berkeley Administration they would bring in extra police tonight in order to try to keep everyone safe, keep the students safe and to try to control this protest or at least keep it from getting out of control which unfortunately has gotten out of control and turned rather unlessty in tunless nasty. Were looking at the streets surrounding sproul plaza. This is bancroft shut down. When yiannopoulos tried to speak at uc davis two weeks ago, they had to cancel it because of the protest. One person was arrested. We saw a large crowd heading to the parking lot where he was apparently supposed to be going before his speech and a lot of people with signs and those people with the masks showed up. This speaker, mil Milo Yiannopoulos is the news editor for bright bart were hearing the event is cancelled. The protesters have achieved their objective, which is to shut down this event and speaker once again. Its now happened several times. Uhhuh. U. C. Davis couple weeks ago, cal poly. Last night he was supported to give and davis two weeks ago and, you know, of usually the cancelling, they want to keep everybody safe. Police wanted to keep everybody safe and things were getting tense there. It looks like this event will not go on. The question is now how long will the protestors stay out there having achieved this objective, will they disburse but Milo Yiannopoulos will not speak on the campus of u. C. Berkeley tonight. Yes, we are keeping an eye on this. If you have to turn away, if you have to go do Something Else, always turn to the abc 7 news app for the latest. We send out push alerts so you can get updates instantly on your phone and devices, your ip ipad, whatever you happen to have and tablet and twitter. Again, this area is going to befectbe effected for quite is the and protesters in sproul plaza. Now that is not going to happen. This Milo Yiannopoulos is 32 years old. Writer for bright bart. He has had some extreme views and controversial views on to c topics such as islam, social justice, Political Correctness in the country and the protesters outside did not want the people inside to be able to hear what he had to say and they have accomplished that goal tonight. Yeah, and as laura mentioned, there was a lot of smoke coming off. We have wayne freiedman is monitoring the situation. What is going on . Reporter good evening. Im probably 50 yards away from the building in a crowd of people off to the side that didnt want to go inside. The smoke laura was talking about is tear gas fired what appeared to be by uc berkeley Police Officers. In response to people in the crowd who were shooting brightly lit, could have been fireworks or Something Else at them. They broke through the barricades, as im sure you know by now and hauled the barricades around and tried to break into the building, smashing glass on the doors with the barricades, trying to get inside. Throwing rocks at the Police Officers. Right now we have Police Officers on the balcony of sproul hall looking down. They do appear to have what is weapons or tear gas shooting devices of some sort. They are looking down. It appears to be a stand off. Im not sure everyone here in the crowd knows that this speech has been cancelled but from two hours ago when there were only a few people protesting in the plaza and now we have, im not very good at estimating but maybe close to 2,000 people. Most of them angry. The questions weve been asking about free speech. This is the home of the free speech movement. Weve seen scenes like this before in the late 1960s. So the question now is this man wants to come speak at u. C. Berkeley and the University Said okay and what is the difference between a speech then and a speech now . And what students are telling us is the difference is they dont like the message this man has to say. They say if he has the freedom of speech, they have the freedom to protest. Thats what they are doing. So thats why they are here and thats why they are not leaving, nobody is leaving yet. They plan to stay awhile, but at least for the moment, at least, the tear gas or whatever it was they were shooting off that balcony cleared but certainly an event and its not going to end any time soon. Dan . Ama . Wayne, i wonder when we saw the fireworks being shot up at the balcony, that was actually a really quite scary for those officers on the roof were we. Reporter well, it was. It was frightening. You dont think word has spread the event is off down there . Reporter i havent heard but they tried to address the crowd from the balcony. One Police Officer, it appears from a distance with a megaphone but over the crowd, he was difficult to hear. The other difficulty to hear is chanting going on and several very loud and i mean loud explosions. They sound like cherry bombs or bigger than cherry bombs. Every time one of those goes off, the crowd cheers again. They cheer after they jump but yeah, disruptive and do you see reporter surprising. Do you see a Large Police Presence there on the ground . We are seeing from sky seven a lot of vehicles on the side. We saw some of the officers on the balcony, but of usually, its hard for us to tell. Are reporter well, let me count the officers on the balcony right now that i can see and lets see, i see one, two, th e three. I see three. Four. And those are on the side facing the crowd. There are other officers down below. Lets go down and take a ground eye view from Laura Anthony there on the scene for us again. Laura, youre seeing some of the damage now. I havent seen or heard about anyone being hurt, is that what youre gathering, as well . Reporter well, right, dan, they just got the word here that this event is cancelled so thats one thing. This is the front of the Student Union here. You can see there are some broken windows. This is a barricade they threw right through one of the windows. At this point, police arent giving the order to disburse and randy, if you look this way to your right, you can see the crowd is starting to heed that warning and running. So we are going to head that way, as well. But the police are still up on the balcony. They just gave an order to disburse and as you can see, some in the crowd have decided to go ahead and heed that warning. We can also show you this generator, this light here for the event was knocked over to the left here, randy. That was here for this event. Yeah, we saw them actually reporter just underneath the balcony. Were just under nooelt tneath balcony. We understand all buildings on campus are locked down. Cant go into any of the buildings. They are all locked down as a safety precaution and we just apologize again. I know every now and again well see a shot with a shine that has foul language, profanity. Apologize. Were doing the best we can to edit that live. Anyway, if that happens, accept our apologies. Seems like a large amount of the crowd seems fairly calm, just there with signs but then there is a hand full, that group, laura that came around, i dont know, around 5 45. Reporter right, just before 6 00 the crowd grew tremendously. A group of people moved in. They now set that generator, that light stand on fire they have what appears to be tear gas on their hands keeping an eye on the crowd and point to an individual and so far at least they havent fired anything in the last few minutes but people are starting to move back and were going to step back from the fire. Yeah. All right. Aain, the event is off. Milo yiannopoulos will not speak. Hes a controversial figure with extreme views and this crowd came out to let those who had organized this event and attending the event that they didnt want to hear from him and didnt think he should have the right to speak and managed as this happened a couple times now, once at cal poly and uc davis, managed to stop the event from taking place. Again, were hearing the buildings are on lockdown and we remind you, there are signs. We realize were trying to not show you that profanity on them and you may also hear some as people chant. This is live tv. Were doing our best to stay away from that so you dont hear that or see that but this is live. Yeah. All right. And a very intense situation as you can see. There are, as you see, this ring of protesters. Wayne estimates couple of thousand. Thats probably about right, protesters out there clearly many hundreds of people have come out and still there. Look at the barricades that had been placed around the Student Union in preparation for this event. That was no match for these demonstrators who decided to tear those down, tear them apart and shove some of them through the glass at sproul hall at the Student Union. More fireworks there on the right side of your screen. A few minutes ago, we saw several looked like bottle rockets or something being fired at the police on the roof of the building there right next to where this fire is burning literally going right at their faces and blowing up. They were wearing riot gear, at least. A hand full of police on the corner where some fireworks were going off. We saw protestors messing with the light and a large group of people that are staying back and we saw the group with the masks on, they had their own shields that they made for lack of a better term. A huge crowd there now. While we certainly dont know, certainly and well try to find out, some of those protestors and ones that showed up with masks and shields may do this in other locations. They may be professional prop t protesters who did this a lot. Th they do this a lot. Bencro police cars and people trying to get through and stopped and about 5 45 stopped. The speech scheduled there tonight now cancelled. You can hear cheering from the crowd as this light fixture goes up in flames. Look at those flames now. The smoke being put off. Laura anthony is on the ground and on the steps of the Student Union there. Sproul plaza. It got intention and people moving back when they started to use the tear gas but they didnt leave. They stayed and they are staying and we heard that its cancelled and they tried to let the crowd know its cancelled but hard to know how many people got that word. As wayne told us from the balcony an officer appeared with megaphone to try to tell the crowd to move on and that the vent was cancelled but over the protesters and chants and the noise he said it was very hard to hear them. Of course, with social media and everything else, everybody has a phone down there, they now surely all know the event is cancelled but in the immediate moments i dont think they got word right away. Look at this light generator go up in flames, utterly destroyed. Yeah, Wayne Friedman is there. We have a message from the Berkeley Police department, an estimated 200 to 300 people but that may be more now. A lot of people out there. Reporter more than 200 to 300 people. A lot more than 200 to 300 people. Its more like 2 or 3,000 people. Were losing his feed and sky 7 is over the scene. Well try to get wayne back. From the Berkeley Police department they are saying in the area of telegraph, they are hearing reports of vandalism and fires being set. Reporter hello . There is is nothing we can do with the signal. Its the phone signal. Wayne, were hearing you. Reporter good. Excellent. Im glad youre hearing me. The crowd has been that light stand is still burning. People are moving excuse me, i got a whiff of tear gas in my throat. There you go. They are moving people back some more. They opened the blinds inside the building to show on the second level there is no one there. There are Police Officers on that balcony. Now i know why everyone else is moving back because the tear gas is back out and well, whats happening now . Here we go. Someone moved in closer. Someone is taking a selfie. Doing Facebook Live or something. Who knows. Reporter stay with us. Dont go to Facebook Live in this case. Wayne reporter they are now moving back in. The protestors are moving back in. Reporter they opened the blinds. Did you see anyone leaving the building like the students there to attend the event . Have they left . Do you know . Reporter dan, i dont think i saw anybody go in. I dont think they had a chance. Part of this if anyone climbed those stairs to go into this building in front of this crowd, they would they would have been shouted down and it would have been a rucker unlike anything weve seen. The crowd has come back in around that burning light there you go again thats another one of those loud booms and yet, thats nothing compared with what weve heard earlier. Thats maybe half as loud as the loudest boom that weve heard. Back up on the balcony you see the berkeley Police Officers looking down. They dont seem to be shooting any more tear gas. There is a band playing. There are people waving flags. There are people dancing. There is one person here with a tuba. [ laughter ] reporter hes playing and nobody can hear him. And would you like to hear reactions from students down here on the ground . Maybe that would be of interest. Oh, and we just lost the signal right there. So we have lillian kim now on the phone with us. Lillian, where are you and what are you seeing . Im in sproul plaza. Im in the middle of the sea of protesters here who have no intention of leaving. Lillian, i think we lost you. Well give you pause for a moment. Im here. Try again, please. I just got connected to my photographer. He came out of the thick of it. He was saying that he saw a lot of activity, there was a generator outside the building they were he saw protestors damaging and setting on fire. And right now there is some applause but i dont know what they are clapping for but i think i hear an officer giving out the order people are i cant. What did he say . Oh, hes saying the officer is saying this is an Unlawful Assembly and people need to leave but people dont seem to be leaving despite the fire going on and despite the tear gas that was disbursed earlier. Thanks very much. Stand by. Well come back to you and other reporters there. Couple things to recap. The speech tonight by a controversial figure, mil Milo Yiannopoulos the 32yearold editor for bright bart was scheduled to speak. Protestors showed up on mass. At least a couple thousand of them. It turned nasty and a little violent and threatening so uc berkeley authorities cancelled the event tonight and as you can see, that was 15, 20 minutes ago. The protesters are not leaving and hanging out despite orders to disburse. Weve seen them set palates on fire. You see the fire, police are reporting people are throwing things like bricks, fireworks that we saw and people do need to steer clear of this area, the area around College Avenue and dwight way. Need to steer clear as this protest continues. Our Laura Anthony is on the scene again and has some new information for us, laura . Reporter hi, dan. You can see where we are here, i think, were right in front of the fire here. This generator still burning behind me. The crowd is moved in closer here again. There was some cheers sort of atmosphere of victory, i guess, because they feel like they have won the battle to have this event cancelled, at least for tonight. Again, this was a generator, a light stand that was here presumably to provide light and safety for the expected demonstrations. That has clearly been destroyed. There are still Police Officers up on the balcony. They have given a disburse order here but at this point, if these folks as you can see have no apparent intention of going away. So again, there is music playing. I think you can probably hear it at this point and a bit of a celebration going on. Is that a live band performing or somebodys boom box. Reporter i think its a sound system of some sort. I dont see a band. This is war. Thats what the sign says and they certainly conducted it as if it was tonight. Very militant protest on the campus of uc berkeley. Some damage done to the building and speech cancelled. We saw barricades through glass doors and windows and this is a good time to remind you, this is live. Were trying not to show you signs with profanity or anything like that but people may be shouting it as well so that may come through the air waves. We apologize for that. We are doing our best to not bring that. We refuse to accept a america. The last 15 minutes or so before 6 00, showed up in masks and you see some Wearing Masks and bandannas, obviously, protecting their identity. And shields. They had literally home made shields. Dont know howfe effective they were. There you see somebody posing. A sign, taking pictures. This is all because of mil Milo Yiannopoulos. There is a sign we dont want to see. Reporter do you want to hear from folks . Please, laura. Reporter let me see if i can find someone. I think reporter can i talk to you . Ms. . Sure. Reporter all right. So what do you think . Im not sure. I think its good in one way for people to vent and get frustration out but i dont know about the burning. Reporter it took a turn. It went from one thing to another. Were you and speexpecting that . Is that what you thought should happen . I think its just reaching a boiling point, you know. Things are just boiling over and people are mad, you know. Reporter the event has been cancelled. I wasnt sure. Reporter yeah. Its just a culmination of everything going on now. Reporter whats your name . Erica. Reporter thanks for talking with us. That gives you a sense of how some folks are feeling about what happened tonight. She wasnt exactly thrilled i would say about the turn it took but i guess relief from per perspective this speech is cancelled. Well, the good news so far, thanks a lot, to the best of our knowledge, no one has been hurt and easily that could have happened because things did get fairly intense out there and if youre watching this live from the campus of u. C. Berkeley, there is a lot of tension in the country generally these days and certainly a lot of tension on the campus of u. C. Berkeley tonight. We have a statement. Yeah, yiannopoulos posted on his facebook page. He was supported to speak tonight. I can read it. It says i have been evacuated from the u. C. Berkeley campus after violent protesters threw rocks and roman candles and breached the ground floor of the building. My team and i are safe. Ill let you know when facts are clear. One thing we know for sure the left is terrified of free speech and will do anything to shut it down. Thats the message from mil Milo Yiannopoulos and things got tense and that is cancelled. Yeah. So he will not be speaking. He didnt speak at cal ppoly or uc davis. Protestors showed up. Many are students here. Others we dont know if they just came to campus to take charge of this demonstration in someway but as you can see, there are hundreds, thousands of people as you look live at sproul plaza at the campus of u. C. Berkeley victorious in their effort to prevent a speaker from uttering a single word to those who were going to show up tonight to hear what he had to say. We have a lot of reporters on scene. Laura anthony has been there since it started and the group in masks came and showed up and things got rowdy. Wayne friedman, lillian kim is there. As we look from sky 7. We can see how huge the cloud was and shut down and the generator that just continues to burn. Some palates were set on fire and fireworks set off and police were on the balcony of the building. There was some tear gas they put out and there is an order to disburse. Obviously, that is not happening. They are ignoring the order. The generator was a light generator with a light pole on it and we saw them tearing it down and lighting it on fire and that was some time ago. It continues to burn. A lot of people standing around, seeing what is going on, taking pictures and selfies, maybe making facebook posts. No one is leaving. I suspect they still want to make their voices heard and some dont want to leave so see what else might happen. Others may not have gotten the word its cancelled. The person laura was talking to wasnt clear which is remarkable. You would think everyone is on twitter. If anybody in this crowd has not heard, i would be stunned. Right. So a lot of people there a lot of media there, as well, documenting this. That is all happening. Milo yiannopoulos is safe in some area now. Thats been cancelled as protesters continue to mill about. As youre watching, you probably have the same sense of relief as intense as this became for awhile, at the very least no one we know of was hurt and thats not always the case when things get out of control and turn rough. To the best of our knowledge, no student or anyone else has been injured. Yeah, were going to show you video now on the lefthand side when the fireworks were being set off. You can see people pulling down barricades. Some went through the glass and the side of the building. We also havent heard a fire extinguisher. We havent really heard of any arrests or anything from the Police Department at davis. There was one arrest when the protest broke out there. Wayne, whats the latest where you are . Hello, ama. To our knowledge there have been no arrests but i would say there were 2,000 people here. I talked to wayne, youre cutting out and were missing every other word. Wayne, well get that fixed. We want to hear what that ex Police Officer told you, laura, go ahead. Reporter yeah, hi, i was just going to say were standing right by where this light stand is burning and there is no attempt at all by the Fire Department to get in here and try to put out this fire. I think they are going to let it burn out. I think at this point they are concerned about probably the safety of their firefighters in trying to get in through this crowd, which is, you know, pretty relatively mellow at this point, but certainly hasnt been that way for the entire time weve been out here. So again, i think they will let this fire burn out. Im standing on the other side here. The Police Officers have completely left the balcony. I think their approach is to try to take a nonconfrknonconfron stance and hope the fire and intensity dies down. Laura, they seem very deliberate in their effort not to further aggravate or excite the crowd to turn any more violent. They definitely stayed back it seemed to me and showed restraint. Would you agree . Reporter right at the point yes. At the point in which fireworks were being thrown up at them, they really did not respond. I think we thought it was tear gas. Im not sure it was based on my experience. I think it was some kind of gas or some kind of irritant but i cant say for certain whether it was actually the Police Officers that disbursed it. Ill be interested to hear later where exactly that came from. It could have come from the crowd. People lighting cigarettes on the old burning generator bewind you, laura. This has been going on for a good hour now it seems as people have been out there and when the other group came and showed up and got things a little more tense. Laura, doesnt look like anyone is leaving. Uhuh. Reporter they arent and there is several disburse orders that have been given and police have not followed up with action. While they have declared it an Illegal Assembly and given disburse orders, they havent done anything after that. As i look up on the balcony, they arent even up there anymore. Im not sure there is intention as long as things stay like this to act on the crowd and remove them from the area. Let it fizzle out. Do you see a line of Police Officers or anything anywhere or a big group of them . Reporter i see no Police Officers at this point. There was a line of them up on the balcony above us but at this point, i dont see any Police Officers. Hi, mom reporter at all, at least certainly not down here on the plaza. This is legit, too. Stay safe as we continue to monitor this changing situation. This is live looking at sproul plaza and the protests happening after a speech was scheduled for Milo Yiannopoulos. People arent leaving. They are staying out there. This one lone Police Officer there on the balcony from randys camera he showed us, several others up there have apparently moved on. We have on the phone with us a student at u. C. Berkeley, grant, are you there . Yes, im here now. Im here at sproul plaza. One thing i can say, i think ive gotti think things have gotten out of hand. Were you there for the speech . I was walking to class. People arent seeming to disburse but there is a fire going on and its really getting out of control. What are your thoughts . This is your school where you go to study for your future i was against him coming to the campus all along, but to be honest, the way people are reacting, i think they are taking it too far and they are not really making any difference from the republicans and the people they are arguing against, and i just things are getting out of hand and a ton of turmoil right now. Youre disappointed to see this scene . Im incredibly disappointed. I wish people would get control and realize that people need to gather themselves together and realize, you know, things can get out of hand and end up having a negative effect in general. Thats interesting because you werent in support of him in the first place. I wasnt but i was scared of coming to campus just because of this happening and now, you know, im here and stuck in the middle of it. Do you feel like others feel the same as you . I do. I do strongly feel that but the people down here in the midst of it are getting caught in the flair of the action and kind of losing sight of what they are arguing for. Grant, give us a quick little assessment of it looks like there is a va vriety of ages there, Young Students and folks that are a bit older, am i right about that . Its clear there is more than Berkeley Students here. There are other people coming from the surrounding come maun t communities. I have a hard time thinking people that go to this school breaking windows. This is too much chaos and i think its all just starting to fire back with the people trying to put on this protest. Thanks a lot. Grant caplin a student minding his business on his way to school. Thanks a lot. Good luck to you. Lets get back to Laura Anthony. Laura . Reporter im standing here with a student that has something to say about this event. Were you involved . Were you going to go to the speech . I was not going to attend the speech but i certainly dont appreciate the views of mil Milo Yiannopoulos but i appreciate the importance of fry speech. The violence occurring and the individuals inciting this violence, i dont believe this represents the majority view of the student body. This only gives more ammunition to the individuals that were trying to protest to say that were unjust, were creating instability within society. I believe we need to condemn the acts of violence but recognize protest is important. Reporter another college are you republicans that sponsored this event, their message is let this guy speak. You dont have to agree with him but hear him. Do you agree with that . Its important to recognize as a free speech right but i would echo the message that we need to have a moral responsibility who we invite on campus. Its important to hear the other sides views but i dont think milo represents and create political instability within the uc berkeley system. Those individuals need to recognize milo isnt the right person to bring on campus to advocate for the views. What do you hope happens from here . I hope people recognize that, you know, free speech is important and we cant stay within the liberal bubble but yet, they need to recognize they cant invite individuals that are decisive. Thanks very much for talking with us. That was manu mill, a student here and i would say disappointed at the turn this has taken tonight. Im sure many of my friends and many people here in the crowd would also agree. I talked to a lot of them. All right. Thank you very much. All right, dan, ama, thats the view of one of the students who has been watching this tonight and concerned about the way things have turned out here. We heard from another student. Thanks a lot. Stand by, if you would. Yeah, and, you know, i mentioned earlier and ill mention it again, police are telling people to stay away from the area. Youre looking at video of the violence, the barricade and glass and mutual aid is on its way. Just to help out. U. C. Berkeley administration said earlier today before reporter ama, dan . They said they would bring in extra security. The approach they clearly took and that we havent seen any arrests or fights or anything of that nature or scuffles with police. The approach clearly was stand back as long as things didnt get too violent and out of control, not escalate and dont confront the protesters directly. Laura, you have an update . Go ahead. Reporter ama, can you hear me. Go ahead. Reporter as we speak, as we speak, there is a Police Officer up on the balcony and hes giving more detailed order, which is that this is an Unlawful Assembly and giving notice there is an order to disburse and that failure to disburse could result in being subjected to tear gas and other chemical agents. So i think people are starting to take it seriously, and i think so will we. Absolutely. Doesnt look like anybody is heeding his warning to leave. They are Still Standing there. Maybe it means they are considering actually taking action here pretty soon. Reporter whats that . Were just saying that maybe it looks like the police may have a change of strategy here and do get more involved in actually getting the crowd to leave. Well have to wait and see. So far the strategy has resulted in some damage but no injuries. Reporter just from my experience, again, with protests in the bay area, especially in oakland, they will go through a protocol. They will give a series of warnings before they take any action. So i would say we heard at least three word ordinaorders to disb this last order was more specific about what might happen if folks fail to disburse. Yeah. A lot of music and people just hanging out. Folks we do know in fairness, some of the students there as students and others who probably are coming in from other places, one of the things protesters do on a regular basis in various locations will do is deliberately want to have a confrontation with the police and stick around to make sure they do in fact have a confrontation. So see how the authorities respond to that and how they respond. All right. Lau laura, stay safe. Were keeping an eye on this. It all started a little more than an hour ago when some people in masks you can still see there is is a gentleman with a mask there. A lot of people are carrying signs. Of you obviously we cant control it. Were doing our best not to bring that to you but this is live tv and go ahead. We have this note from Milo Yiannopoulos that was going to speak. He put out on facebook that he had been evacuated and now hes saying hes going to go live on facebook as soon as he gets to a secure location. We think hes already in a secure location having been hustled out of there. But hes supposedly going to go on live facebook. Were hearing reports that some nonlethal bullets are being fired. Or thats what he has posted on facebook. We do not know if thats accurate. We havent seen that. Lets stay away from what hes reporting. We dont know hes no longer on the scene. We have not seen that at all. Weve seen fireworks going off. We saw some sort of smoke as laura said she cant necessarily confirm if it was tear gas or who set it off. Its hard to know. We saw them with the tear gas and we never saw them fire anything but we saw what looked like tear gas going off in the crowd. Police are reporting people were throwing bricks, we saw someone with what appeared to be a smoke, fire extinguisher, doing that. There was the light pole generator that came down set on fire. Bencroft way is shut down. Safety precautions. Somebody is now more chanting. More chanting. No one is leaving. Looks like the demonstration is firing up again with speakers. So police are telling them its an Unlawful Assembly and they should disburse. They are saying there should be a disburse order at some point. We heard there was a couple of disburse orders. I got one question for everyone here, are we going to leave . No are we going to leave . No are we going to leave . No so that is in direct response to the police order. Thank you, enjoy the party. That speaker riling up the crowd to stay put even though they had a victory tonight from their perspective and shut down the speaker, Milo Yiannopoulos. They are starting to play more music. You can follow this on the internet, as well. We are covering this on our website, abc7news. Com, our news app and we sent you push alerts if you enable them to get instant updates as they happen, as we take another live look from sky 7 at the crowd there. Again, were estimating a couple thousand people there at least have been milling around. As ama mentioned you hear the music now. Whoever was on a megaphone telling the crowd not to leave, despite what the police are telling them to do. The good news is the intensity of the activity has died down. When they were lighting things on fire, throwing fireworks at the police and smashing windows, it looked like it was going to escalate. Despite the numbers there at sproul plaza calmed down and you can wait and see having warned them with legal assembly, whether they allow them to continue and play out or take action and move along. Right. People have been told to steer clear of this area. Stay away. Mutual aid from the Sheriffs Office is on the way to help keep things in control. Again, this is all happening at u. C. Berkeley. Laura anthony is there k on the hey, laura, go ahead. We see you, go ahead. Reporter im still here if you can see me, were in the dark trying not to attract too much attention. Were right in the middle of the crowd here and again, we just heard a speaker say they have no intention of leaving, if anything, its become a Party Atmosphere out here. And as were standing here on sproul plaza looking up at the building, there are no Police Officers on that balcony anymore. Again, they came out a few minutes ago and gave what i believe to be at least the third disburse order with specific instructions about what is going to happen if folks dont leave in terms of possibility of chemical agents or tear gas they used on the crowd but at this point, we dont see one Police Officer up there and as you heard the crowd say or one of the hearleaders say himself the are no plans to leave, at least at this point. Okay. Laura, thanks very much. We were interrupted by the producer so i couldnt hear what you said. Apologize. Were going to stay on a little bit longer as we go into jeopardy. Just because this is a very intention situation down on the campus of u. C. Berkeley. Well get you to programming as soon as we can but bare with us for a few minutes because we want to make sure we stay on top of what is happening tonight in case things should take a different turn. If you are just joining us, this started because of a speech that was scheduled from mil Milo Yiannopoulos. Hes known for being or having extreme views on islam, social justice, Political Correctness, selfproclaimed internet troll. Hes been widely criticized for being racist. He was supported to speak at cal polly yesterday. Davis a couple weeks ago. Davis was cancelled. A protester was arrested. So yeah, everywhere he goes there is controversy. He certainlycontroversy. Thats what he attracts. But he was not able thats what he attracts. He was not able to speak tonight so the College Republican Group Sponsoring this event will not be able to hold the event. The uc berkeley authorities, the police really specifically and the administration, shut it down for safety concerns as protesters began to show through the glass and light things on fire, it became clear it would not be safe to have students go inside and listen to a speaker. Lets get to lilian kim now live near that scene, lillian . Reporter hi, im in the middle of the plaza and im witnessing picket holders who are arguing with protesters and its getting very heated. And theres some eggs being thrown at the picket holders. And theyre dipp