After school on Friday, Aug. 14, 2026, an altercation involving Berkeley High School students and two adult men broke out near the Downtown Berkeley BART station.
Every year, BHS upperclassmen celebrate the longstanding, unofficial, tradition of “Freshman Friday.” On the first Friday of school, many students bring eggs, Orbeez guns, and more to the streets of downtown Berkeley. While some students intend to target incoming freshmen, the day more commonly results in a majority of senior v.s. junior altercations. Along with Rally Day, this unofficial BHS tradition has become notorious for frequently spilling beyond playful celebration into confrontations with Berkeley residents, drivers, and even police. This year’s “Freshman Friday” was no exception.
According to multiple witness accounts, a large group of students were gathered near Allston Way and Shattuck Ave. egging and orbeez-gunning one another.
Two men were waiting separately at the nearby bus stop — one appeared to be in his 50s and wore a pink hoodie, and one appeared to be in his 30s, wearing brown pants and a patterned shirt. Video evidence shows a student striking the man in the pink hoodie with what appears to be an egg. Benjamin Tarn, a junior at BHS, said he witnessed the incident, describing the man getting pelted with eggs. The man allegedly responded by pepper spraying up to six BHS students, and multiple sources claimed that some of the students sprayed had not been involved in the egging.
Some videos and social media posts documenting the incident reached other students at BHS. “I saw stories (on Instagram) of people, and it looked like their eyes were kind of busted, and like hurt ... It’s kind of crazy,” said Sadie Kayatsky, a BHS junior.
As the man grew increasingly agitated, he chased students around the entrance to the BART station, rousing and drawing the attention of many of the surrounding students.
Video footage showed that the second man picked up his backpack and began swinging it at students, allegedly to defend the previous man. The footage shows him striking several students before chasing a group across Shattuck Ave. toward its intersection with Allston Way. He tripped and fell in the street, where a group of three students surrounded him, punching and kicking him for roughly 30 seconds.
BHS junior Abeyekab Gebremariam said he stepped in to break up the fight. “I just was there; I tried to pull them away,” Gebremariam said. Both men left the scene shortly afterward, and witnesses reported no serious injuries to students beyond the effects of the pepper spray.
The incident has not been officially addressed by the Berkeley Police Department, and no public disciplinary measures against students involved have been taken.