WILD NYU PROTEST
11 busts at rally vs. ‘fascist’
Eleven people were arrested outside NYU Thursday night as protesters gathered to voice their disgust with right-wing Vice Media co-founder Gavin McInnes, who was holding a seminar for the school’s College Republicans.
Most of the busts were for disorderly conduct, police said.
The controversial McInnes, who is also a comedian, almost didn’t make it to the event in the Kimmel Center’s Rosenthal Pavilion as “anti-fascist” demonstrators rushed at him at the entrance.
“Cops shoved them back, took a guy to the ground. Guy in a MAGA hat threw a punch,” Gizmodo reporter Anna Merlan tweeted, using the acronym for President Trump’s campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again.”
Scores of police officers poured into the campus area Thursday night in an apparent effort to prevent the kind of riot that rocked the University of California, Berkeley, Wednesday when Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos, another right-wing provocateur, tried to speak there.
The NYU crowd held signs and chanted, “Nazi scum your time has come,” while lighting “Make America Great Again” hats on fire.
“Just saw 4 vans of cops unload outside of the NYU Anti-Fa [antifascist] protest of Gavin McInnes’ talk,” Jason Miller tweeted at around 7 p.m., when McInnes was scheduled to start speaking.
“They are threatening to arrest everyone in the herd now, each cop with roughly 8-10 zip ties in tow,” he said.
NYU Local, the school’s independent news feed, alerted the public of the situation on Twitter.
“Arrests happening outside of Kimmel,” it tweeted.
McInnes, who left Vice in 2008, was seen on a Periscope live video speaking at a podium at the center and shouting at protesters who got into the venue.
“Who’s campus, our campus!” they yelled. “Shame! Shame! Shame!” “Why are you repeating the same nonsense over and over?” McInnes asked at one point.
After a few more minutes of back-and-forth, he ended his speech early, telling an NYU official, “You’re a dumb liberal a- -hole,” and “You think these are rational beings,” before storming away, NYU Local reported.