A female Breitbart News reporter was assaulted at least three times Thursday while covering a hotly contested speech from her colleague, editor Ben Shapiro, at California State University, Los Angeles, according to video footage she captured from the event.

The incident began outside the event as Adelle Nazarian was recording members of the college’s Black Student Union who were protesting Mr. Shapiro’s speech.

“I was videotaping the procession of the Black Student Union and one woman noticed me making a video of the event,” Ms. Nazarian said. “She approached me, and said, ‘I will beat the piss out of you.’ She approached me, and she shoved me, and then she tried to push my iPhone down. And then the lead organizer, carrying a cone megaphone, noticed the confrontation and came back towards me and hit my phone with his megaphone. The front of the cone, at bottom, was pushed in by the force of the impact. He then shoved it in my face and kept screaming at me.”

Video and audio captured by Ms. Nazarian appears to back up her account.

“You’re physically abusing me right now, that’s physical assault,” Ms. Nazarian tells the male lead organizer.

The man then begins shouting at her through his makeshift megaphone, claiming he never touched her.

“You’re here to incite violence against brown bodies and black bodies!” he yells.

Ms. Nazarian continued to cover the protest inside the campus venue, where she was assaulted again by a different demonstrator.

“Girl, I will throw your phone,” a black woman says before grabbing Ms. Nazarian’s phone, a different video shows. Other protesters yelled “no you won’t” and stopped the woman from further physical contact.

Ms. Nazarian captured screenshots of her abusers’ faces and posted them on the Breibart News website.

Mr. Shapiro’s speech didn’t go on without incident either. As the conservative writer discussed the threats he had received prior to visiting the campus, the fire alarm went off and lights started flashing, The Blaze reported.

“Folks if you just joined the live stream, someone pulled the fire alarm to stop us because this is how the fascists do it,” Mr. Shapiro said. “Where the [expletive] is the administration on this campus?”

The university had initially decided to cancel Mr. Shapiro’s lecture, but issued a statement Thursday indicating that it would allow the event to proceed:

“Leading up to the event, there were a number of emails and social media posts that caused concern for the campus community. Given threats and expressions of fear, President William A. Covino proposed a rescheduled event that would be civil and inclusive, and in which Mr. Shapiro and speakers with other viewpoints could offer their perspectives in an organized forum,” the statement said, Breitbart News reported.

“My decision was made in the interest of safety and security,” Mr. Covino said. “I am disappointed that Mr. Shapiro has not accepted my invitation to speak in such a forum. He has indicated that he will come to Cal State LA to speak today at the University-Student Union Theatre, where he was originally scheduled to deliver his talk.”

Mr. Covino added: “I strongly disagree with Mr. Shapiro’s views. But if Mr. Shapiro does appear, the university will allow him to speak. We will make every effort to ensure a climate of safety and security.”

According to tweets by Mr. Shapiro, protesters blocked entrances and prevented people from entering the university’s student union where he was giving his lecture. After speaking for about an hour, Mr. Shapiro wrote that he had to be escorted out by police due to safety concerns, a local ABC News affiliate reported.



“We had to be escorted by a full police cordon as well as a motorcade thanks to safety concerns,” Mr. Shapiro, who is also editor-in-chief of the Daily Wire, tweeted to his 171,000 followers Thursday evening.



“We are safely out. The police informed us they could not guarantee our safety or that of the student attendees if we went into the crowd,” he wrote.



Following the event, students staged a sit-in in front of Mr. Covino’s office and video reportedly showed some students trying to block him from leaving. Demonstrators called for Mr. Covino’s resignation over what they described as a growing lack of trust for allowing Mr. Shapiro’s presence on campus, ABC reported.

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