As the crowd got more aggressive, so did police officers. Some protesters fought back. One man in gas mask rushed a half dozen police officers in protective gear, blasted one officer with pepper spray underneath his safety mask and then sprinted away. The officer lay on the ground, rubbing his eyes.

Paul Howard, 24, an aerospace engineering student, jeered the police.

“Of course we’re going to riot,” he said. “What do they expect when they tell us at 10 o’clock that they fired our football coach?”