Police clear protest encampment at MIT in early morning sweep, arresting 10

Police broke down the pro-Palestinian encampment on 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 breaking down tents and clearing debris from within the encampment site near dawn. Ten students were arrested and appeared in Cambridge District Court later Friday morning. They were released after a judge agreed to continue their arraignment to July 10.

Attorneys representing the state said in court they plan to ultimately dismiss the charges, so long as students follow MIT orders and stop trespassing on school property.

About 30 people went to court to show support for the arrested students. Jean Luc Pierite, an MIT visiting scholar and pro-Palestinian protester, said he was relieved his fellow students were released, but it's unclear what the protesters will do next.

"As a community, we’re going to have to figure out what is the way forward with the demands that the institution is putting on the students," he said.

The students facing charges in court declined to comment.

The encampment clear-out came the morning after after nine MIT protesters were arrested Thursday in a clash with police. After that gathering ended, many students returned to the tents the school had been ordering them to dismantle. But not for long.

Police in riot gear arrived around 4 a.m., encircled the camp and gave protesters about 15 minutes to leave. A crowd outside the camp began gathering and chanting pro-Palestinian slogans, but were dispersed by 6 a.m.

Cambridge police said in a statement Friday morning they were "one of the agencies that supported" MIT police during the morning sweep, but did not take anyone into custody. "The arrests were handled by MIT Police."

In a message to the MIT community Friday morning, the school's president, Sally Kornbluth, wrote, "At my direction, very early this morning, the encampment on Kresge Lawn was cleared. The individuals present in the encampment at the time were given four separate warnings, in person, that they should depart or face arrest."

She said the 10 remaining people "did not resist arrest."

Kornbluth said she had been opposed to using arrests as a threat since the encampment started on April 21. She called Friday morning's action a "last resort," after rising tensions over the past few days, "involving outside threats from individuals and groups from both sides."

"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. We did not believe we could responsibly allow the encampment to persist," she wrote.

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

Tensions on campus had escalated after MIT administrators issued suspensions on Wednesday to dozens of students who had participated in the encampment.

A mid-day rally Thursday, where protesters marched from Kresge Lawn to MIT's Stata Center, was met with campus and Cambridge police. Officers lined up to keep protesters from blocking the Stata Center. By mid-afternoon, about 60 officers were on the scene, including state police, in a tense standoff with shouting protesters.

MIT said Thursday "fewer than ten" people were arrested during the encounter on Vassar Street.

MIT’s encampment was one of the longest standing in the area. Police dismantled protest encampments at Northeastern University and Emerson College in recent weeks. Students at Tufts University took down their encampment on May 3, but said in a post on social media that it was not because of successful negotiations with school administrators.

An encampment remains standing at Harvard University. The university has said students participating in the protest have violated university policies, and that students will face discipline.

In a post on Instagram early Friday morning, two of Harvard’s pro-Palestinian protest organizations said that 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 protesters’ demands” and “reiterated that the encampment must end” ahead of commencement 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.