On the evening of September 29, after State Senator George Yarbrough withdrew the State Highway Police, a riot broke out the following day. Whites opposing integration had been gathering at the campus and began fighting with the federal agents. Despite the Kennedy administration's reluctance to use force, it ordered the nationalized Mississippi National Guard and federal troops to the campus. In the violent clashes which followed, two civilians were killed by gunshot wounds, and white rioters burned cars, pelted federal agents and soldiers with rocks, bricks and small arms fire, and damaged university property.