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. Bu