Area police joined about 300 officers from across the state Thursday night at the University of Massachusetts to protest the appearance of a speaker tied to a domestic terror group responsible in the early 1980s for the murder of a New Jersey state trooper and a shootout with state police in North Attleboro.

The police officers stood in the cold outside a building at the state college's Amherst campus for more than two hours to protest the appearance of Pat Levasseur, the former wife of Raymond Luc Levasseur.

The Levasseurs were members of the United Freedom Front, a domestic terror group responsible for the 1981 killing of New Jersey State Trooper Philip Lamonaco during a traffic stop and a shootout in 1982 with two Massachusetts state troopers in the rest area on Interstate 95 in North Attleboro.

After a week of controversy, Raymond Luc Levasseur, 60, of Maine, was denied permission from the U.S. Parole Commission to travel to Amherst to speak.

However, his former wife and co-defendant in a 1989 sedition trial held in Springfield, was scheduled to speak to students about the sedition trial and social change, along with lawyers from the defense team and a juror. Mansfield Police Sgt. Larry Crosman and Attleboro Detective Sgt. Arthur Brillon were among a group of 15 area police officers who drove by bus to the join the law enforcement contingent protesting the forum and supporting Lamonaco's widow, Donna, and her daughter outside the building.

"I fully respect everyone's right to freedom of speech. But personally, I find it insulting that a state college is being used as a platform for his ideology," said Brillon, who carried a sign that read "Cop Killers Not Welcome Here."

"We're here standing next to his widow and his daughter and we're standing with hundreds of state police, police officers and police chiefs," said Crosman, who carried as sign that read "Shame on UMass."

"They chose to protest by blowing up courthouses and killing a trooper. But we're protesting here the right way," Crosman said.

Now a carpenter, Raymond Luc Levasseur was convicted in 1986 for bombings to protest U.S. backing of South African apartheid and right-wing death squads in Central America. He served 18 years of a 45-year sentence, and was paroled in 2004.

In 1982, two members of the United Freedom Front were involved in a shootout with two Massachusetts State Troopers at the rest area on I-95 in North Attleboro.

The shootout occurred around 2 a.m. on Feb. 7, 1982, when troopers Michael Crosby and Paul Landry were performing a vehicle safety check in the rest area.

The troopers found two men in a station wagon who began acting suspiciously when the troopers arrived. There was also a Doberman pinscher and two duffelbags in the car.

During a subsequent investigation, Landry found that the passenger was wearing body armor and warned Crosby when the driver suddenly exchanged shots with police.

The driver ran and escaped but the troopers captured the passenger. All escaped injury. The driver fled the state and was later captured. The two men were convicted on charges related to the shootout.

State police found a cache of weapons in the station wagon, along with the Doberman, which initially held troopers at bay.

After the shootout, North Attleboro police went house-to-house on Kelley Boulevard searching for the shooter.

Raymond Luc Levasseur was on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted List from 1977 to 1984 for a string of bank robberies and bombings of government buildings in New England for which the United Freedom Front claimed responsibility.

The bombings Levasseur was arrested for included a 1976 explosion in the Suffolk Superior Courthouse. He was acquitted of the courthouse bombing and of attempting to overthrow the U.S. government following a 10-month U.S. District Court sedition trial in Springfield.