From Bee staff and wire reports:
Eight people, including two art students from the University of California, Davis, were arrested and charged with rioting and other offenses after a Friday night rampage outside the home of the UC Berkeley chancellor.
The students were taken into custody Saturday for suspicion of rioting, threatening an education official, attempted burglary, attempted arson of an occupied building, felony vandalism, and assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer in Berkeley.
Julia Litman-Cleper of San Francisco and Laura Thatcher of Rolling Hills Estates, listed among those arrested, were identified Sunday as undergraduate students in Davis.
UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi said Sunday evening she was "was appalled to learn of the attack on Chancellor Birgeneau's home, and that two of those arrested were UC Davis students."
"Such violence cannot be justified," she said. "It's now up to the judicial process to determine appropriate action."
UC Davis spokeswoman Claudia Morain said the women also were among the dozens of protesters arrested in mid-November after they refused to leave Mrak Hall in Davis. That event was part of a wider UC system protest over UC Regents $2,500 increase in student fees.
UC system spokesman Dan Mogulof said 40 to 70 protesters also threw lighted torches at police cars and the home of Chancellor Robert Birgeneau on Friday shortly before midnight. There were no fires or injuries.
The eight arrested were held in lieu of $132,500 bail, with orders not to return to campus if they were released, Mogulof said.
The Berkeley campus newspaper, the Daily Californian, reported that Litman-Cleper was among those released midday Sunday.
In Davis, a programmer at the campus public service radio station KDVS FM 90.3 said Litman-Cleper serves as that station's production director.
Authorities said protesters broke windows, lights and planters outside the chancellor's home.
Earlier in the day, police arrested 66 protesters at a campus classroom building that was partially taken over for four days.
Demonstrations have been waged over state funding cuts that led to course cutbacks, faculty furloughs and sharp fee increases.
"The attack at our home was extraordinarily frightening and violent. My wife and I genuinely feared for our lives," Birgeneau said in a statement.
Two others among the eight arrested after the Birgeneau home attack are Berkeley students, authorities said. The remaining four are from Oakland, San Francisco, Fullerton and Brooklyn, N.Y.
"Most of what you have here are people from outside the university," Wendy Brown, co-chair of the Berkeley Faculty Association and a professor of political science, said in criticizing the violence.
Agnes Balla, a junior public health major, said she walked out of classes weeks ago and joined peaceful protests that united the campus community and brought attention to a serious problem.
"With this turn of events, that's not what's going on anymore," Balla said. "I'm in support of bringing attention to this, but it's gone too far."
UC system President Mark Yudof, in a statement, called the latest attack "appalling" and "far beyond the boundaries of public dissent."
