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Protesters square off with police outside Turning Point USA\u2019s campus tour event at UC Berkeley. Credit: Richard H. Grant for Berkeleyside<\/p>\nProtesters square off with police outside Turning Point USA\u2019s campus tour event at UC Berkeley. Credit: Richard H. Grant for Berkeleyside<\/p>\n
A version of this story first appeared on KQED<\/a>.<\/p>\n The U.S. Department of Justice announced Tuesday it is investigating\u00a0how UC Berkeley prepared<\/a>\u00a0for a Turning Point USA event Monday night that sparked intense protests on campus.<\/p>\n In two letters<\/a>\u00a0posted on X<\/a>\u00a0and addressed to university officials, the department\u2019s Civil Rights Division requested campus communication records related to how the university prepared security for the event and responded to the protests.<\/p>\n Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon wrote that the division is determining whether to include Monday night\u2019s events in ongoing Civil Rights investigations into the University of California system or to open new ones.<\/p>\n \u201cI see several issues of serious concern regarding campus and local security and Antifa\u2019s ability to operate with impunity in CA,\u201d Dhillon, the\u00a0San Francisco lawyer and Republican activist\u00a0tapped to head the civil rights division by President Donald Trump, wrote on X.<\/p>\n Attorney General Pamela Bondi also chimed in on social media, characterizing the protests as \u201cviolent riots.\u201d She said the protests will be investigated by the FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force.<\/p>\n Antifa is an existential threat to our nation.<\/p>\n The violent riots at UC Berkeley last night are under full investigation by the FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force. We will continue to spare no expense unmasking all who commit and orchestrate acts of political violence.<\/p>\n Under\u2026<\/p>\n \u2014 Attorney General Pamela Bondi (@AGPamBondi) November 11, 2025<\/a> <\/p>\n Organizers of the protests framed the incidents differently.<\/p>\n \u201cPro-TPUSA people tried to agitate members of the crowd, but for the most part, attendees just ignored them, gently led them out of the crowd, and carried on with chants and dancing. Our event, which lasted more than five hours without major incident, was a positive affirmation of our diverse and supportive community,\u201d the SF Bay Activists Media Team wrote in a press release Tuesday.<\/p>\n Protests were organized before the event by several different groups, including by a coalition of UC Berkeley student organizations<\/a>, by Bay Area activists planning what they called a \u201ccostume dance party for justice,\u201d and by the radical anti-fascist group By Any Means Necessary. <\/p>\n UC Berkeley Assistant Vice Chancellor Dan Mogulof said the university denounces violence and is committed to holding accountable anyone who breaks the law or campus rules.<\/p>\n \u201cThe University is conducting a full investigation and intends to fully cooperate with and assist any federal investigations and the FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force to identify the outside agitators responsible for attempting to disrupt last night\u2019s TPUSA event,\u201d Mogulof told KQED in a statement. \u201cUC Berkeley will take all appropriate steps to safeguard the right of every member of our community to speak and assemble freely.\u201d<\/p>\n Hundreds of protesters clashed with law enforcement and attendees of a Turning Point USA event Monday night at UC Berkeley. The far-right youth movement was co-founded by Kirk, the late conservative activist.<\/p>\n UC Berkeley said it\u00a0increased security<\/a>\u00a0given the event\u2019s timing \u2014 two months after Kirk was assassinated while speaking at Utah Valley University during the opening leg of his nationwide college tour. He was\u00a0scheduled to headline<\/a>\u00a0Monday\u2019s event.<\/p>\n Barricades lined Lower Sproul Plaza, a main thoroughfare on campus. Protesters shouted chants, calling those in attendance \u201cfascists\u201d and \u201cNazis.\u201d The demonstrations intensified as hundreds voiced their opposition, forcing event organizers to close or move some of the entrances for attendees.<\/p>\n In one of the most dramatic altercations, protesters rushed a barricade but were held back by over two dozen police officers. The standoff lasted several hours.<\/p>\n Several additional clashes broke out between Kirk supporters and protesters. <\/p>\n Mogulof told Fox<\/a> that a man was hit in the head with a glass bottle or jar and taken to the hospital for treatment of a laceration. <\/p>\n And in another altercation, a man selling \u201cFreedom\u201d T-shirts got into a fistfight. His face was bloodied as police detained him and one of the demonstrators involved.<\/p>\n Berkeley police arrested two people following a violent scuffle on Bancroft Way between a man selling Kirk memorial \u201cFreedom\u201d t-shirts and Jihad Dphrepaulezz, a 25-year-old Oakland man. <\/p>\n Berkeley police officers who witnessed the fight initially arrested both men on suspicion of fighting in public but, after speaking with witnesses and reviewing video, opted instead to arrest Dphrepaulezz on suspicion of robbery and battery as he \u201chad stolen the other man\u2019s chain from around his neck,\u201d Berkeley police spokesperson Byron White said in an email. Photos and videos from the melee<\/a> showed the vendor wearing a cross medallion on a chain, and Dphrepaulezza clutching it after grappling with the vendor.<\/p>\n After a right-wing media personality sought to portray the incident as an anti-Christian attack, writing \u201ca man professing Christ as King had his cross ripped from his neck by what appears to be a Muslim man,\u201d Dhillon signaled agreement on X<\/a>, writing that it was \u201cproblematic and noted.\u201d The New York Post, a right-leaning tabloid, seized on Dphrepaulezz\u2019s first name<\/a> in its headline about the incident. <\/p>\n Police said they released the vendor and sent Dphrepaulezz to the Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, but he was not listed as in custody there Wednesday and the Alameda County District Attorney\u2019s Office had not filed formal charges, according to jail and court records.<\/p>\n While tensions remained high throughout the event, there don\u2019t appear to have been any other significant injuries.<\/p>\n University police made two arrests as well, Mogulof said. They cited and released one 22-year-old, whom Mogulof described as either a current or former Cal student, with obstructing and refusing an order to leave property not open to the general public. And they arrested a 48-year-old man with \u201cno affiliation\u201d to the school for similar reasons and for refusing to leave campus while interfering with campus activities. <\/p>\n \u201cAt first it was a little scary when rocks and paint in glass bottles started coming over,\u201d said Pacifica resident Eli Mehrling, 25, a Turning Point USA supporter, referring to objects thrown by protesters at police across the barricades. \u201cBut it\u2019s really just kind of infuriating that when we have an event, they try to shut it down. We\u2019re not the fascists. The people who shut us down with violence are a lot more akin to the fascists than we are.\u201d<\/p>\n Kirk, a self-described free speech advocate and outspoken Christian, rose to national prominence as the co-founder of Turning Point USA, which promotes conservative values on high school and college campuses. He helped mobilize young conservatives on issues, including abortion, LGBTQ rights and DEI policies.<\/p>\n The organization, which once created a website identifying college instructors it claimed discriminated against conservative students, expanded beyond campus activism to become a major engine for Trump\u2019s 2024 campaign.<\/p>\n In the days after Kirk\u2019s death in September, the Trump administration used the killing to justify a\u00a0crackdown on political dissent<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat Charlie Kirk and Turning Point has been trying to do isn\u2019t champion free speech or open debate. It\u2019s to try and bully and intimidate people into silence and we won\u2019t accept that,\u201d said Hoku Jeffrey, one of the organizers of Monday\u2019s protests.<\/p>\n Inside a sold-out Zelerbach Hall, a sea of red \u201cMake America Great Again\u201d hats filled the seats. The mood was upbeat as attendees filed in to The Beatles\u2019 \u201cHere Comes the Sun.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf only we had this kind of security at the border,\u201d joked comedian Joebob Taeliefi, who warmed up the crowd and took aim at the \u201cblue-haired\u201d protesters outside.<\/p>\n Before the headliners \u2014 actor Rob Schneider and Christian author and activist Frank Turek spoke \u2014 Turning Point\u2019s UC Berkeley chapter president, John Paul Leon, led a moment of silence for Kirk. An empty chair on stage bore a white T-shirt emblazoned with the word \u201cFreedom.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe sad truth is the left is not your friend,\u201d Leon said during the event. \u201cTo all those protesters outside I have one thing to say: It is clear to us which side is winning when your side becomes the violent agitators. When you try to win with force and not reason, you have already lost the intellectual battle. They want to destroy any ounce of conservatism that they can get their filthy paws on.\u201d<\/p>\n While Turning Point supporters said the organization promotes free speech and conservative values, many protesters saw Monday\u2019s event as an affront to human rights.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that it\u2019s more important now than ever for us to be united here as students and really make it absolutely clear that this amount of hate and this rhetoric of destruction and eliminating people\u2019s dignity has no place here in Berkeley,\u201d said Sofia Ruiz, a freshman political science major who joined the protest.<\/p>\n UC Berkeley has experience with protests ignited by incendiary speakers. In 2017, violent protests\u00a0forced the cancelation<\/a>\u00a0of a speech by conservative commentator Milo Yiannopoulos.<\/p>\n \u200b\u200bBerkeleyside is a media partner of KQED<\/a>, a listener-supported public radio station serving Northern California. Natalie Orenstein contributed reporting to this story.<\/p>\n “*” indicates required fields<\/p>\n \t![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1762985171_43_AP25315045134585-1.jpg\")
A t-shirt vendor (in red) fights with a protester before the event. Credit: AP\/Noah Berger<\/p>\n