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CAMBRIDGE, MASS. (WHDH) - Protesters were back on the campus of MIT Friday afternoon, marching down the middle of the street, hours after officers in riot gear moved in and cleared out the pro-Palestinian encampment on the MIT campus early Friday morning.
After a rally on the campus, itself, protesters chanted as they marched their way down Vassar Street. The march ended around 5:30 p.m. after the crowd gathered at university President Sally Kornbluth’s formal residence.
“The only thing making us materially unsafe on this campus is the intense police state that this administration has constructed around us,” said MIT student Sam Ihns during the rally at MIT. “The only physical violence that we have experienced since the erection of our encampment is from the police invited to it.”
Ten people were arrested at the MIT encampment Friday morning, according to Kornbluth. Protesters were then taken off campus for booking. A Cambridge police spokesperson said nobody was hurt.
“I have no illusions that today’s action will bring an end to the conflict here, as the war continues to rage in the Middle East,” Kornbluth said in a letter to the campus community. “But I had no choice but to remove such a high-risk flashpoint at the very center of our campus.”
7NEWS cameras captured some of the events near 4 a.m., showing protesters chanting, shouting and clapping before police made arrests.
In her letter, Kornbluth said she ordered the encampment cleared, describing the police action as “a last resort.”
Kornbluth said officers moved in and gave four separate warnings to people at the encampment, telling them “that they should depart or face arrest.
“The 10 who remained did not resist arrest and were peacefully escorted from the encampment by MIT police officers and taken off campus for booking,” Kornbluth said.
Though Cambridge police officers supported MIT police, a Cambridge Police Department spokesperson told 7NEWS said the city’s officers did not take anyone into custody.
A Massachusetts State Police spokesperson in a separate statement said state police personnel “were at or near campus to assist.”
“MIT handled any arrests,” the spokesperson said.
By 8 a.m., little was left of the Kresge Lawn encampment, with tents, barricades and protesters all taken away from the area.
Speaking near sunrise, MIT graduate student Baltasar Dinis shared his reaction.
“The encampment is not our cause,” he said. “The cause is the people in Gaza right now that are being exterminated by the Israeli regime — the Israeli system of apartheid. And we want to end MIT’s complicity with this regime.”
One protest organizer told 7NEWS authorities brought trucks with floodlights to surround the encampment.
“Then, out of nowhere, hundreds of riot geared officers began surrounding the encampment, enclosing 10 students,” the organizer said.
“It’s shameful that MIT turns, in the cover of darkness, against its students with a very militarized police force completely disproportionate to the action, to the number of students that are here,” Dinis said.
Encampment arrests follow arrests at MIT garage
The encampment formed at MIT last month as one of several in greater Boston and across the country.
Amid the ongoing war in Gaza, MIT demonstrators called on the university to cut its research ties with the Israeli Ministry of Defense.
Protesters at several other colleges and universities called on administrators to divest from organizations connected to Israel and the defense industry.
Locally, Police broke up local encampments at Emerson College and Northeastern University. Protestors also took down their encampment at Tufts University in Medford in recent days. But MIT demonstrators remained on site in Cambridge.
On Monday, Kornbluth said the encampment needed to end, giving participants a deadline to leave the area or face suspensions.
Though many demonstrators initially complied, some soon pushed past barricades and reclaimed the encampment on Kresge Lawn.
On Wednesday, Kornbluth said protesters blocked the entrance to MIT’s Stata Garage on Vassar Street before eventually dispersing.
“Later, after taking down Israeli and American flags that had been hung by counter protestors, some individuals defaced Israeli flags with red handprints, in the presence of Israeli students and faculty,” Kornbluth said.
Kornbluth said several pro-Israel supporters entered the encampment to confront pro-Palestine demonstrators.
Kornbluth said “tensions ran very high” and the day ended with more suspensions and a new rally by pro-Palestinian students.
On Thursday, protests again escalated when demonstrators tried to block the Stata Garage on Vassar Street.
SKY7-HD spotted police and protesters scuffling outside the garage near 2 p.m., with officers wrestling protesters to the ground and making some arrests.
The scene eventually cleared and protesters said they would return to Kresge Lawn.
Kornbluth said police made nine arrests at the Stata Garage on Thursday.
Encampment became a ‘flashpoint,’ MIT President says
Kornbluth has faced scrutiny, alongside other college and university leaders, for her handling of protests and incidents of hate since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
As police made arrests around the country and dealt with clashes between protesters and counter-protesters at some campuses, Kornbluth said MIT administrators watched “with great concern.”.
“We have been determined to avoid violence, and I have been strongly opposed to using the threat of arrest to resolve a situation that should be mediated by discourse,” she said.
Kornbluth said administrators “tried every path” to find a solution to protests at MIT, including meeting with student protesters.
But Kornbluth said MIT could not meet the students’ “primary demand”
Kornbluth said the MIT encampment was different from past demonstrations, “because this is not one group in conflict with the administration.”
“It is two groups in conflict, in part through us, with each other,” she said.
Kornbluth said the encampment became a symbol and a flashpoint for pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel protesters.
“The escalation of the last few days, involving outside threats from individuals and groups from both sides, has been a tipping point,” Kornbluth said. “It was not heading in a direction anyone could call peaceful. And the cost and disruption for the community overall made the situation increasingly untenable.”
Protesters appear in court after arrests
Hours after their arrests, MIT protesters appeared in court to face the trespassing charges against them.
In court proceedings, the district attorney’s office agreed to drop the charges if the students follow MIT rules and if they don’t get arrested again.
An attorney representing the students called the charges “absurd.”
With students set to protest again, the arrested students’ lawyer insisted that their deal with the DA’s office will not prevent them from protesting.
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