Radical speaker's speech called off amid protest at UC Berkeley

Protesters turned Milo Yiannopoulos, an alleged radical political figure, away Wednesday evening from the University of California, Berkeley, for a speech.

The event was sponsored by the Berkeley College Republicans (BCR) for Yiannopoulos, 32, an editor for the U.S. conservative website Breitbart and a spokesperson for the so-called "alt-right" movement for his extreme views on Islam, social affairs, and political issues.

A witness said hundreds of students gathered at the scene outside Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union building on the campus, northeast of San Francisco, in Northern California, to protest against Yiannopoulos' presence.

About 90 minutes before the 8:00 p.m. event (0400 GMT Thursday), UC Berkeley posted a message on its social media network Twitter account that the "performance" was canceled. Minutes later, UC Police, Berkeley, posted a message on the same account, updating that "Milo (Yiannopoulos) has left campus."

As demonstrators, some of them apparently from outside the public school, started to mobilize after 4:00 p.m. (0000 GMT Thursday) and to light fires and fireworks in front of the building after 5:00 p.m.(0100 GMT Thursday), police deployed helicopters and other extra resources and issued repeated orders for immediate dispersal of the crowd.

The campus was on lockdown, while the crowd refused to disperse.

Yiannopoulos, a Briton born in Greece, has been criticized for being racist and misogynistic.

Demonstrators argued that Yiannopoulos' hateful rhetoric has no place on a public university campus.

Former Breitbart head Steve Bannon is now Assistant to the President and Chief Strategist for U.S. President Donald Trump and has reportedly added two staffers from his news site to the White House staff. Endi