A total of 108 arrests were made, and four officers were injured, Sgt. Detective John Boyle of the Boston Police Department said in an email. He said there were no reports of injuries among the protesters.
Other footage from the scene showed onlookers shouting as police removed students or pushed them to the ground, a sea of tents behind them. The college did not immediately respond to requests for comment early Thursday.
The activist group Emerson Students for Justice in Palestine accused police of “slamming” protesters to the ground, and it called on Boston Mayor Michelle Wu to do more to protect “her constituents of color.”
Meanwhile, more than a dozen student activists began setting up an encampment at Northwestern University early Thursday, and more than 60 students began a sit-in at Princeton University, according to campus newspapers.
At Harvard Yard, an encampment entered its second day on Thursday. The protests have been peaceful so far, student newspaper the Crimson reported.
Pro-Palestinian protests have rocked dozens of universities, including Columbia, New York University and California State Polytechnic at Humboldt. University officials have aggressively cracked down on campus demonstrations against the Israel-Gaza war, leading to arrests and tense standoffs with authorities.
New skirmishes broke out Wednesday at the University of Texas at Austin, where state troopers clad in riot gear took at least 34 protesters into custody at the direction of Gov. Greg Abbott (R), according to state law enforcement officials, after hundreds of students walked out of class to demand that the school divest itself from companies that do business with Israel.
At the University of Southern California, officers struggled with protesters while seeking to break up a demonstration. Los Angeles police said Wednesday night that 93 people were arrested, with no reports of injuries, and that the protesters later dispersed.
The USC main campus remains closed until further notice, the university said. The move comes after Columbia announced that it would require many classes at its main campus to be hybrid where possible for the rest of the semester. Cal Poly Humboldt said it has closed its campus through the weekend due to the protests and said work would continue to be remote.
