Eight people, including at least two Berkeley students, were arrested last night near the residence of university chancellor Robert Birgeneau.

A university statement claimed that a group of more than forty people stormed the residence, smashing windows, lights, and planters. Officials also said that “incendiary objects” were thrown at the house and at police.

Photographs posted at the Daily Cal, Berkeley’s student newspaper, showed several broken planters and a shattered window. An Associated Press report said that four lights had been smashed and that a second window was boarded up this morning.

In the statement released this morning, Birgeneau said that those arrested last night would be “prosecuted to the full extent of the law, and urged “the majority of the group who have been expressing their point of view in nonviolent ways to condemn the actions of these few individuals.”

I posted some thoughts on the use of vandalism as a protest tactic earlier today.

2:00 pm | Someone at Occupy California has posted a lengthy account of (and defense of) last night’s riot. I’ve written a separate post in response to it.

6:00 pm | Several leaders of the UC Berkeley student protest movement are quoted in the Daily Cal repudiating the riot.

6:20 pm | The LA Times reports that four of the eight arrestees were UC students — two from Berkeley and two from Davis. All eight are reportedly still in custody on bail of $132,000 each.

6:45 pm | A press release on the events of last night has been posted at liveweek.net, the website of the Wheeler Hall open university. The whole thing is worth reading, but here are some highlights:

A Live Week organizer is quoted as saying that “regardless of what one thinks about the events of last night,” they must be understood in “the context of the physical violence inflicted by police on student activists and the broader assault on public education.” The press release quotes witnesses as saying that police arrested individuals who were “trying to leave because things were getting out of hand,” and that some arrestees were simply “in the wrong place at the wrong time.” It also says that one arrestee is an independent journalist who was filming the demonstration and police response when he was taken into custody.