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A correction to an earlier version of this story has been appended to the end of the article.

BERKELEY — UC Berkeley, the birthplace of the Free Speech Movement, was rocked Wednesday night by a violent demonstration seeking to stop right-wing lightning rod Milo Yiannopoulos from delivering a talk there.

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Watch: UC Berkeley protest against right-wing lightning-rod Milo Yiannopoulos turns violent The event was called off at 6:15 p.m. as more than 1,500 people gathered outside the Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union to protest. At one point, a splinter group wearing all black clothing and clutching shields made out of cardboard launched fireworks at police on a second-floor balcony. Metal barricades set around the building also were thrown into windows and a light generator was knocked down and set ablaze.

Police dressed in riot gear responded with orders to disperse and fired tear gas into the crowd. Most demonstrators cleared the plaza around 8:30 p.m. and began marching down Telegraph. A few members of a marching band joined the crowd, as they energized protesters celebrating the canceled event. Protesters began marching back to campus around 9:30 p.m.

As of 10:30 p.m., the crowd of demonstrators dwindled down to about 200.

Police received reports of protesters vandalizing businesses on Telegraph Avenue, Shattuck Avenue and Center Street. Some demonstrators set small fires to banks in the area. BART trains did not stop at the downtown Berkeley station for about an hour.

Police received unconfirmed reports of a hit-and-run collision involving a white BMW at the intersection of Durant and Telegraph avenues. No victims had been found as of 8:40 p.m.

University police reported at least five people were injured from fights in the area. A Yiannopoulos fan took offense at a burning Trump hat, which was placed on top of a pole, and a few punches were thrown between him and a protester.

UC Berkeley police Chief Margo Bennett estimated that at least 1,500 protesters attended the demonstration. She believes that at least 100 protesters were “agitators,” and that none of the masked demonstrators were students.

“It was a very practiced group that came in,” Bennett said.

A smaller group of about a dozen protesters wearing all black with bandanas around their faces held up makeshift shields made out of cardboard as they tossed fireworks at police on a second-floor balcony.

Some protesters yelled over a microphone in unison: “No Trump. No KKK. No fascist USA.” After the event was canceled, many revelers danced to loud music while ticket-holders to the event watched the chaos in disapproval.

A heavy police presence surrounded the event venue before it was shut down. The university issued a shelter in place around 6:22 p.m. Police advised the public to avoid Sproul Plaza in the southern area of campus, where authorities shut off lights in the area. The campus lock down was lifted around 11 p.m.

All clear for shelter in place. Routine campus business and classes will be held tomorrow. #miloatcal — UC Berkeley (@UCBerkeley) February 2, 2017

The Alameda County sheriff’s deputies and Oakland and Berkeley police officers responded to the university for crowd control.

Tensions rose shortly after a group of protesters wearing bandanas set fire to wood pallets and debris near a barricade. Protesters threw fireworks in the direction of police officers, who wore full riot gear and returned fire with tear gas. A light generator was knocked down and set on fire as demonstrators surrounded the blaze with their signs in the air.

UC Berkeley graduate student Pike Long was glad the event was eventually shut down, but she believes university administrators should have canceled it sooner.

“I’m very happy we shut the event down and didn’t give this fascist a platform,” Long said. “On the other hand, I am frustrated with the escalation of setting things on fire because ultimately I think it’s counterproductive to our movement.”

David Pedersen, a student from University of San Francisco, planned on attending the sold-out event with a group of classmates. He watched the revelers, who were mostly peaceful with the exception of some masked protesters.

“Kids from this school, smashing their own building,” he said disapprovingly. “They don’t want to talk politically. They just want violence. No free speech.”

His classmate Anthony, who would not give his last name, said “it’s like ‘Lord of the Flies’ out here.”

The controversial Yiannopoulos responded to the protesters on Facebook.

“One thing we do know for sure: the Left is absolutely terrified of free speech and will do literally anything to shut it,” he wrote.

Advertised on Eventbrite as “The Dangerous Faggot Tour,” the self-proclaimed gay conservative’s traveling show also included stops at UC Davis and UCLA. A British national, Yiannopoulos writes for the right-wing Breitbart News.

Part of Yiannopoulos’ shtick is to antagonize people on the left while thrilling his right-wing followers with expressions of misogyny, racism and hostility toward Islam, and the brazenness of his disdain for “political correctness.” His recent actions include publicly outing a transgender student activist at a University of Wisconsin event in December.

Earlier last month, protests caused cancellation of scheduled speeches at UC Davis by Yiannopoulos and former pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli, sponsored by the UC Davis College Republicans, whose UC Berkeley counterparts were sponsoring Wednesday’s event at Cal.

Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin spoke out against the event on Twitter.

“Using speech to silence marginalized communities and promote bigotry is unacceptable,” he wrote. “Hate speech isn’t welcome in our community.”

Lively debate already underway between students @UCBerkeley ahead of scheduled appearance of #MiloYiannopoulos pic.twitter.com/Uhi7lYkG0m — Laura Anthony (@LauraAnthony7) February 1, 2017

But UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks, in a Jan. 26 statement, resisted calls to cancel Wednesday’s event, even as he denounced Yiannopoulos as “a troll and provocateur who uses odious behavior in part to ‘entertain,’ but also to deflect any serious engagement with ideas.”

“He has been widely and rightly condemned for engaging in hate speech directed at a wide range of groups and individuals, as well as for disparaging and ridiculing individual audience members, particularly members of the LGBTQ community,” Dirks added.

“Since the announcement of Mr. Yiannopoulos’s visit, we have received many requests that we ban him from campus and cancel the event,” Dirks said in the statement. However, “Consistent with the dictates of the First Amendment as uniformly and decisively interpreted by the courts, the university cannot censor or prohibit events,” he added.

Yiannopoulos’ supporters say leftist students’ attempts to silence him demonstrate their hostility to freedom of speech and closed-mindedness to differing opinions. Detractors who call for Yiannopoulos to be barred from speaking counter that his statements conjure up hate and that shutting him down is a matter of protecting the safety of his targets.

Correction: Feb. 2, 2017

An earlier version of this story reported that UC Berkeley marching band members joined the protesters. The affiliation of the band members who took part in the protest is unknown.