At some point during the night, a heat lamp fell down and caught fire. There were no Molotov cocktails. These kids didn’t know how to make one. But when the media reported that firebombs had been thrown, the UC Police thought the campus was actually under paramilitary attack. Instead of making arrests, they retreated in the face of what they believed to be a superior force. The situation therefore wasn’t contained and continued to spiral out of control. In other words, the digital echo affected real-time police action, which allowed the situation to escalate.
