Photo: James Rojas/WBZ NewsRadio
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (WBZ NewsRadio) — Early on Friday morning around 3 a.m., the pro-Palestinian encampment at MIT was broken up after an early morning raid by police in riot gear.
Streets surrounding the campus were closed in the early hours of Friday and police in riot gear made their way into the encampment. Several students publicly protested their actions and chanted as the encampment was dismantled, including Baltasar, an MIT student.
“It is baffling that MIT has mobilized what can only be described as a fascistic, military police force,” he said.
According to MIT graduate student Mohammed, the encampment was implemented by the students as a part of their ongoing efforts to get MIT to break away from their support of the Israeli Government. Read More: Over 300 Harvard Faculty Sign Letter Urging Student Protest Negotiations
“I mean, who can back down during a genocide? I mean, the only time that anybody will back down is when this genocide ends and specifically when MIT complicity ends,” Mohammed said.
Police from multiple agencies showed up at 3 a.m. and finished clearing the encampment by 4:30 in the morning.
Robert Goulston, a spokesperson for the Cambridge Police Department which assisted MIT Police in clearing the encampment told WBZ NewsRadio in a statement that “CPD was one of the agencies that supported MIT PD this morning on their property. We, specifically, did not take anyone into custody. The arrests were handled by MIT Police. I can confirm that nobody was hurt.”
The university has said that ten protesters in the encampment have been taken away by police.
WBZ's James Rojas (@JamesRojasMMJ) reports.
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