Violence breaks out at Berkeley protest

BERKELEY, California — Thousands of counter protesters took to the streets of Berkeley on Sunday where they clashed with a handful of Trump supporters, leading to several violent clashes and at least 14 arrests.

The mostly peaceful demonstration started heating up about noon at Martin Luther King Civic Center Park, where the two rival groups faced off and several fights broke out.

Counter-demonstrators vastly outnumbered the president's supporters. They surrounded their rivals and chanted, "No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA!"

There were shoving matches around well-known Orange County far-right figure Johnny Benitez. Some screamed "Go home Nazi," as police tried to escort Benitez and Irma Hinojosa, a member of the Southern California group Latinos for Trump, through the crowd and out of the park.

Police in riot gear fired a rubber bullet at one demonstrator who attempted to cross a barricade into the park, which was closed to the public. Some protesters set off purple smoke bombs.

Some anti-facists protesters, known as antifa, pounced when Joey Gibson, founder of the right-wing group Patriot Prayer, showed up with his crew. The protesters beat one man with a shield and another person wearing an American flag.

Some of the antifa protesters also threatened to break the cameras of anyone who filmed them, including journalists. One reporter tweeted that he had been pepper sprayed in one scuffle.

Moderate counter protesters were upset with the violence. "We need to get antifa out of here," said Jack Harris, who helped break up a fight.

Andrew Noruk, who was wearing a T-shirt denouncing both the Republican and Democratic parties when two young women came up to him and started yelling at him.

"You're a Nazi," they shouted, leaving Noruk, who said he came out to protest Trump supporters, confused.

Noruk denounced the fights breaking out near the park, claiming antifa and black bloc anarchists have given Trump's supporters exactly what they wanted: footage of violence perpetrated against the presidents supporters in a historically liberal city.

"We can't keep producing this audio visual propaganda," he said. "It is recruiting for the right."

Experts who monitor extreme right wing groups have echoed that fear for months. In the lead up to this weekend's protests, experts told The Times such groups hold events in progressive enclaves for the purpose of eliciting violent reactions.

But Kitty Stryker, a member of an allegiance of Juggalos and counter protesters known as Struggalo Circus, said the anti-fascists did not incite violence as police and far-right groups have claimed.

Stryker said she provided medical aid to one counter protester who was pepper sprayed by a far-right activist and said she was almost punched in the face while breaking up a fight between a Trump supporter and another person.

Overall, Stryker said, she believed the counter protesters shut down the far-right figures with overwhelming numbers, not violence.

"Mostly though, I didn't see any fighting and I think that has to do with having strong numbers and solidarity," she said.

Several protesters were escorted out of the park Sunday because they were wearing goggles or other items that covered their faces. Fourteen people were arrested, most charged with violating emergency city rules banning sticks, masks and potential weapons in the demonstration area, police said.

Videos captured several acts of violence during the protests, including a mob beating down one man.

Earlier in the day, police lined up a series of dump trucks to form a barricade at the corner of University Avenue and Oxford Street.

"Ideally, we don't want a car to be able to get through here and go rogue on us," one police officer could be heard saying.

Jill Cunningham, a 48-year-old high school teacher from Berkeley, said she came out to support minorities and the LGBT community, whose struggle against the Trump administration she considers a "life or death situation."

"We wanted to just set our eyes on it and see what was happening, and when we got here we realized how fortunate we are," she said.

Cunningham said she wanted her 14-year-old son to come with her, but the teen expressed fear that an extremist group might attack demonstrators, invoking the death of Heather Heyer, who was killed when she was hit by a vehicle while protesting against a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., earlier this month.

"That is just tragic to me," she said.

School officials effectively blocked a planned counter-demonstration at West Crescent park on the nearby Berkeley campus.

UC Berkeley spokesman Dan Mogulof said the decision to wall off the area and limit access was made by campus police.

"The single objective is protecting people…. It is not to shut down speech," Mogulof said.

Overnight, concrete barricades were set up to wall off the park. Emergency restrictions were also imposed, banning not only sticks and shields and helmets but also backpacks. There was a large police presence around the park on Sunday.

"They said they put up these barriers to prevent cars" from entering the area, said civil rights attorney Anne Weills, one of the counter-demonstrators who turned out. The result, she said, was that demonstrators supposedly being protected are also blocked.

"It shows their arrogance and contempt for us," Weills said.
City officials said they denied at least three requests for permits from demonstrators on both sides of the political aisle for Martin Luther King Park. Amber Cummings, a supporter of President Trump who organized the canceled "Say No To Marxism" rally, had asked supporters not to show up.

Gibson, the organizer of Saturday's "Patriot Prayer" rally in San Francisco, did the same: first canceling a rally at Crissy Field, then a subsequent news conference in the city over what he claimed were unsafe conditions and threats of violence from anti-fascists.

After thousands of protesters marched through San Francisco's Mission District on Saturday afternoon, Gibson and about two dozen of his supporters appeared at Crissy Field and argued with some of them, but for the most part, avoided any physical conflict.

Two groups of counter-protesters also requested permits in Berkeley for Sunday, but were denied.

On Sunday morning, storefront windows and homes around Berkeley were marked with placards reading "Berkeley stands united against hate."
Overnight someone hung a red-and-white banner in the park, which read "Bay

Area stands against hate and white supremacy, for solidarity, justice, and dignity."

Across the street at the historic Veterans building another banner said "All you need is love."