Chaos exploded outside a Turning Point USA gathering at UC Berkeley, where masked protesters in keffiyehs turned a campus event into a battleground of fists and fury.
Newsmax reported that on Monday night at Zellerbach Hall, a brutal confrontation unfolded between attendees of a conservative event and a swarm of demonstrators, leaving arrests and tension in its wake.
Earlier that morning, campus police had already detained four students for felony vandalism at Sather Gate, where mocking posters and a giant cardboard insect targeted the late Charlie Kirk, Turning Point’s founder, assassinated just two months prior.
The evening event, featuring comedian Rob Schneider and Christian author Frank Turek, drew hundreds of protesters clad in black masks, chanting slogans like "No Trump, No KKK" and hurling insults at attendees as "fascists."
Trouble ignited when a masked individual tackled a vendor selling memorial shirts honoring Kirk, sparking a violent exchange of blows right at the hall’s entrance on Bancroft Way.
Berkeley police descended swiftly, but the skirmish ballooned into a mass of clashing bodies as private security faltered against the growing crowd.
Dozens of officers, donning helmets, formed a defensive line along the street, while some gripped pepper-ball launchers, their commands barely audible over taunts referencing Kirk’s tragic death.
By dusk, nearly 300 demonstrators clogged the area around Zellerbach Hall, the air stinging with pepper spray as aerial footage revealed brutal sidewalk beatings under flashing emergency lights.
Campus and city police confirmed multiple arrests, including a Turning Point supporter and a protester caught on video in the thick of the fight.
Inside the hall, supporters in patriotic "Freedom" shirts cheered as Schneider and Turek paid tribute to Kirk’s mission to energize young conservatives.
“He really wanted to empower young people, because this is your country, you are the future,” Schneider said, emphasizing Kirk’s heartfelt belief in the next generation.
While the event wrapped around 8:45 p.m., outside, antifa-aligned protesters sealed off all exits, shouting at police and trapping attendees in a hostile gauntlet.
Officers in riot gear, armed with zip ties, lined up near Eshleman Hall as demonstrators danced, shoved barriers, and taunted both police and those inside with unrelenting venom.
Some attendees fired back with shouts of their own, while others slipped away quietly, escorted by police wielding riot shields to carve safe paths through the mob.
“The protest in question is being organized by a group that has no affiliation with the university,” said UC Berkeley Assistant Vice Chancellor Dan Mogulof, defending the right of student groups to host such events while stressing police readiness to maintain safety.