When conservative commentator Ann Counter gave a speech on the Berkeley campus in California on Nov. 22, the leftist response was characteristic: put on the masks and resort to punching, shoving, screaming, kicking and threatening people trying to attend the event.
Coulter gave a talk to Berkeley College Republicans about “the dangers that mass immigration pose to our republic.” Furious Berkeley students including Antifa groups had previously tried to have the event canceled.
The 57-year-old has been accused by the left of “embracing white nationalism” and of citing extremists in her book Adios America, which was also the title of Wednesday’s talk.
Hundreds of people staged a protest and confronted attendees outside the event, according to KPIX, chanting “don’t let them in” and sparking scuffles that led to “multiple” arrests.
Protesters also attacked audience members as they tried to leave with police escort. At least one spectator was shoved to the ground as he tried to get past.
The Republican group who invited Coulter claimed that some attendees had been “punched and kicked” while waiting outside. More than 2,000 protesters turned out, they said.
Demonstrators also chanted obscenities at police officers guarding barricades outside the hall, some in riot gear.
Some arrests were reported and KPIX-TV said a female protester had been handcuffed and escorted away after disrupting the speech.
University police said on Twitter that ‘multiple masked protesters [were] arrested at tonight’s campus event’. ‘We are outraged and tired of our campus being used as a theater to enable, engage and embolden white supremacy and fascism,’ said one organization, UC Berkeley Collective Safety
