HONG KONG — Some protesters slithered down makeshift ropes to waiting motorcyclists, brazenly evading a police cordon set up around a besieged university campus. Hundreds defied warnings to drop their homemade weapons and refused to surrender. And a group of sobbing parents staged a sit-in vigil outside the school, blocked by officers who refused to allow them inside.

The scenes at Hong Kong Polytechnic University on Monday were a montage of urban warfare and mayhem in the heart of the territory, roiled for nearly six months by pro-democracy protesters. The demonstrators have increasingly directed their fury at the police and the authorities in China, who have dropped many hints that their patience is wearing thin.

For days, the protesters have held off the police from entering the campus of Hong Kong Polytechnic, fortifying their holdout with homemade fire bombs, giant sling shots, bricks and bows and arrows.