As reported by TPUSA's Frontlines, the protestors were out to "counter hate on campus," and could be heard yelling in video footage captured from the event "F*ck Charlie! F*ck Candace!"
The group, which appeared to be made up of a couple dozen people, were carrying signs with messages like "ERADICATE FASCISM" and waving LGBTQ pride flags. The disrupters also mostly wore hats and masks to obscure their faces.
In another video, the group can be heard shouting "Flush TPUSA!" along with corresponding signage, as well as chanting "No Kirk! No KKK! No fascist USA!"
As the sun began to set, an unsuspecting man got caught up in the protest when he walked by the commotion and began to record. According to Frontlines, the man, a Ukrainian immigrant, said he was not attending the TPUSA event but "was simply walking home when he was curious about the protest and wanted to film - that's when he was swarmed by the protesters."
The group of masked left-wingers became agitated at his filming and began harassing him and telling him to leave.
"The first amendment of the American constitution guaranteed me the right to be [in a] public place and film people, it doesn't matter how stupid they are," the man argued.
In a move to intimidate the man, the group swarmed him, using megaphones, signs, and umbrellas to try and shove him back. At one point, someone off-camera strikes the unidentified Ukrainian man with a closed umbrella as he backs up.
As reported by the Chicago Sun-Times, a collection of student groups came together specifically to protest the TPUSA event, forming the collective "UIC Against Hatred."
"I have trans friends, I have BIPOC friends that have been attacked by them, by their work, by their rhetoric," one protestor, identified as Nathan, told the outlet. "And as we have seen throughout the United States throughout the course of the last couple years, there's been anti-trans bills, there's been more discriminatory actions, so we don't want that kind of hateful rhetoric on our campus."
Jonathan May, another protestor and student of UIC, said, "I think it's disgusting that the university has these people on campus. Essentially these people are calling for the genocide of LGBTQ people, specifically trans people. Don't have these kinds of people come here."
The student chapter of TPUSA that organized the event said, "We just want to advocate for freedom of speech."
