The police cleared the protest camp at MIT in an early morning raid and arrested ten people

Police broke up the pro-Palestinian camp on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Kresge Lawn early Friday morning, barely 12 hours after a clash with student protesters that also ended in arrests.

Video footage from the MIT Coalition Against Apartheid showed police in riot gear dismantling tents and clearing debris from the camp site around dawn. Ten students were arrested and appeared in Cambridge District Court later on Friday morning. They were released after a judge agreed to continue their arraignment until July 10.

Attorneys representing the state said in court that they intend to dismiss the charges permanently as long as students follow MIT’s instructions and refrain from trespassing on school property.

About 30 people went to court to express their support for the arrested students. Jean Luc Pierite, a visiting scholar at MIT and pro-Palestinian protester, said he was relieved that his fellow students had been released, but it was unclear what the protesters would do next.

“As a community, we need to figure out how to move forward given the demands the institution places on students,” he said.

The students charged in court declined to comment.

The evacuation of the camp came the next morning after nine MIT demonstrators were arrested in a clash with police on Thursday. After that meeting ended, many students returned to the tents the school had ordered them to take down. But not for long.

Around 4 a.m., police arrived in riot gear, surrounded the camp and gave protesters about 15 minutes to leave. A crowd outside the camp began to gather and chant pro-Palestinian slogans but was dispersed at 6 a.m

Cambridge police said in a statement Friday morning that they were “one of the agencies that assisted MIT Police in the morning raid, but did not take anyone into custody.” “The arrests were made by MIT Police.”

In a message to the MIT community Friday morning, the school’s president, Sally Kornbluth, wrote: “At my direction, the encampment on Kresge Lawn was evacuated very early this morning. Those present in the camp at the time were assigned four separate personal warnings that they should leave or face arrest.

She said the 10 remaining people “did not resist arrest.”

Kornbluth said she has been opposed to using arrests as a threat since the camp began April 21. She called Friday morning’s action a “last resort” after tensions increased in recent days and “involved external threats from individuals and groups from both countries.” Pages.”

“It wasn’t going in a direction that could be described as peaceful. And the costs and disruption to the community at large made the situation increasingly untenable. We did not believe we could responsibly allow the camp to continue,” she wrote.

In a post on social media on Friday, the coalition of pro-Palestinian protesters wrote that they would be back. An event was planned for Friday afternoon.

Tensions on campus escalated after MIT administration suspended dozens of students who participated in the camp on Wednesday.

A midday rally Thursday in which protesters marched from Kresge Lawn to MIT’s Stata Center was met with campus and Cambridge police. Officers lined up to stop protesters from blocking the Stata Center. About 60 officers were on scene that afternoon, including state police, and a tense standoff ensued with screaming protesters.

MIT said Thursday that “fewer than 10” people were arrested in the Vassar Street standoff.

The MIT camp was one of the longest running in the area. Police have broken up protest camps at Northeastern University and Emerson College in recent weeks. Tufts University students demolished their camp on May 3, but said in a social media post that it was not due to successful negotiations with school administration.

There is still a camp at Harvard University. The university stated that the students participating in the protest violated university policies and that the students would face disciplinary action.

In a post on Instagram early Friday morning, two of Harvard University’s pro-Palestinian protest organizations said the university’s president met with students this week but “refused to negotiate” and warned students of mass suspensions.

In a statement, a Harvard spokesperson said the “conversation was not a negotiation of the protesters’ demands” and “reiterated that the encampment must end” before it begins on May 23.

With reporting from WBUR’s Barbara Moran, Carrie Jung and The Associated Press. This is a developing story and will be updated.

This article was originally published on May 10, 2024.