Police spray protesters with rubber bullets at UC Berkeley as hundreds smash windows and riot over right-wing speaker Milo Yiannopoulos’ appearance
HUNDREDS of protesters at a US university smashed windows, set fires and clashed with police after a protest against a right-wing speaker turned ugly.
Far-right Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos was forced to cancel his appearance at the University of California at Berkeley after protesters tossed metal barricades and rocks through the building's windows and torched a generator on fire near the entrance.
"We shut down the event. It was great. Mission accomplished," a protester told CNN.
Some 150 ";masked agitators" were responsible for the violence during the otherwise largely peaceful protest of about 1,500 people, the university said in a statement, noting that the school "is proud of its history and legacy as home of the Free Speech Movement" in the 1960s.
President Donald Trump's chief strategist, Steve Bannon, previously headed Breitbart News and CNN reported that many of the protesters voiced opposition to the Republican president.
Many of Trump's executive orders and proposed policies, including his suspension of the US refugee programme and temporary ban on travellers from seven Muslim-majority countries, have been met by largely peaceful protests that have drawn tens of thousands of people across the United States.
One protester at Berkeley held a sign that said "No Safe Space for Racists" while other protesters danced to hip hop music, footage from a Facebook Live feed showed.
Protesters later marched along streets near the campus where some smashed storefront windows and car windscreens while clashing with police, the feed showed.
Yiannopoulos, whose account on Twitter was suspended last year after he was accused of participating in the online harassment of an African-American actress, criticized "the Left", saying in a statement it was "absolutely terrified of free speech and will do literally anything to shut it down."
He also said on Fox News that he was evacuated by police after protesters began throwing rocks and other objects at the building.
"Obviously it's a liberal campus so they hate any libertarians or conservatives who dare to express an opinion on their campuses," he said.
"They particularly don't like me."