Content warning: This story contains explicit content that may be disturbing to some readers.

One year ago this week, between 1:45 and 1:55 a.m. on April 25, 2024, the four-day encampment staged by Boylston Students for Justice in Palestine was swept by approximately 170 police officers and State Troopers after several clearance demands were made by the Boston Police Department. 

The “Popular University Encampment” began on April 21, 2024, as part of a national protest movement meant to call attention to the violence in Gaza by disrupting U.S. college campus operations. Initially, nearly 100 protesters affiliated with Boylston SJP organized tents along the 2 Boylston Place Alley, in solidarity with over 100 arrests made at a pro-Palestine encampment at Columbia University in New York. On Oct. 7, 2023, 1,200 Israelis were killed by Hamas militants, sparking the deadliest iteration of the decades long Israel-Palestine conflict in the 21st century, and in retaliation, the Israeli military killed at least 46,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

In an extensive public records request, The Beacon obtained nearly 10 hours of footage documenting the night of the arrests from 36 body cameras worn by state troopers and cruiser-mounted cameras from the Massachusetts State Police (MSP). The footage shows the 10 minutes it took for the BPD, with assistance from MSP, to arrest 118 people in the alleyway.

The footage obtained by The Beacon references communication between the college and law enforcement and shows confrontational scenes of the sweep, including an escalation of physical force, internal police interactions, and the language used to describe the protesters and the greater Emerson community. 

State Troopers are required to follow de-escalation techniques that abide by the Massachusetts Peace Officer Standard and Training code of conduct. This law prohibits the use of “excessive force”—obstructing a person’s airway or blood flow—but makes an exception for mass demonstrations. Law enforcement is permitted to confine or corral a group of demonstrators for the purpose of crowd control, restraint, or arrest. 

While demonstrators camped in the alley that week, Emerson President Jay Bernhardt asserted in multiple communications with the Emerson community that the college had been in contact with Boston police and other city stakeholders, including the mayor’s office, and was strongly advocating for a peaceful resolution. The communications at the time did not mention any direct discussions with MSP personnel.

Protesters described a heightened risk of arrest on the fourth day, and students created human barricades at the entrances of the alley and by the State Transportation Building at the south end of the 2B Alley. The move came amid a message from Bernhardt’s office, which warned of the encampment’s violation of the city’s camping ordinance and emphasized that Emerson leadership could not stop arrests. 

The message noted allegations of demonstrators blocking pedestrian access to the alley, public noise violations, increased fire hazards, and “credible reports that some protesters are engaging in targeted harassment and intimidation of Jewish supporters of Israel.”

In footage captured by his own body camera, MSP then-Lieutenant Sean Newman confirmed that Bernhardt had been in contact with the State Police before the encampment was cleared and had offered his “support”—a detail the college released on Tuesday after The Beacon obtained the footage and asked the president’s office about it directly.

Newman’s duties as a lieutenant included overseeing the troopers’ plan of action, coordinating with other agencies, and collecting documentation for a post-arrest report. 

The day after the arrests, Bernhardt wrote to the community that it was ultimately the city’s decision to make the arrests.

Body cam footage shows Newman asking BPD Captain Sean Martin if MSP should cover the entrances to the State Transportation Building while the local officers took control of the scene.

“Please,” Martin says. “We’re just going to clear these tents, clear that stuff, work with Emerson to deal with them,” as he gestures to the 2B dorm where students were pressed against every window on every floor, pounding on the glass and shouting anti-police rhetoric. “We’ll leave some officers back.”

In response, Newman says: “The actual president [of Emerson] called me a couple of minutes ago right before we kicked off. He said we have his support.”

The college confirmed the conversation in a written statement to The Beacon. 

 “The College acknowledged law enforcement’s legal authority over the alley while also requesting that they allow protesters the opportunity to remove their tents, voluntarily leave the alley, and avoid arrest,” said a spokesperson for the college in a statement to The Beacon.

“It was a tragic situation that the College sincerely tried to prevent,” the statement continued. “There was no official or formal communication between the College officials and law enforcement related to their actions after they began to clear the alley.”

Several perspectives from the body cameras show protesters in the encampment locking arms and backing away from approaching BPD officers. As officers begin to make arrests, the cameras show a wave of police pulling and shoving individuals to separate the mass that had formed, dragging those successfully separated from the group across the ground, and yelling sometimes profane directives at protesters.

In one instance in the footage, MSP troopers pull a protester away from the group while other demonstrators are holding them back. Newman quickly approaches the protesters and shouts, “Hands off, hands off,” while separating them with his metal baton. Other troopers grab and escort the protester away from the scene.  

Seconds later, a BPD officer is seen striking another protester, then grabbing them by the collar while the protester appears to be in a scuffle with another officer. 

A protester wearing a green coat falls in front of Newman, who drags the individual across the alley several feet away from the human barricade. 

“Do you want to leave or do you want to be arrested?” Newman says to the protester, pressing his baton to the person’s upper body. The protester quickly responds, “Am I being detained?” Newman does not answer. He quickly picks the protester up by their jacket and hands them to a BPD officer, saying, “Take them.” 

Several other clips from the footage show that some of the people who protested were offered a choice to leave the premises voluntarily or be detained. 

One clip from the interior of the Massachusetts State Transportation Building shows an MSP trooper escorting a protester to an area where other protesters were gathered so officers could document their names. The trooper quietly asks the person, “Do you want to be arrested or leave?” 

“I’ll leave,” the person replies. 

Immediately after, a BPD officer asks the line of detainees if anyone is interested in leaving. Another officer rushes to cut the flex cuffs off the person and lets them leave the building. 

All of those who attended the encampment were offered the opportunity to leave by Martin, who made a statement prior to the arrests. However, it appears from the footage that only a handful were offered to leave after the arrests had begun. 

Among those offered the opportunity to leave was Emerson’s Vice President for Equity and Social Justice Shaya Gregory Poku, who was approached by MSP Sergeant Franklin Davis during the sweep. Footage from Davis’s body camera shows Gregory Poku standing between the entrance to the Tufte building and the Dining Hall, watching as BPD and MSP encircle the demonstrators.

“If you want to go, just keep walking straight through,” Davis says to an individual wearing a red coat, who is not Gregory Poku. Davis approaches the administrator, who is also wearing a red coat and standing with her back to the wall with her hands up, and he repeats the directive: “If you want to leave, just leave.”

Gregory Poku responds, “They’re our students.” After a second confrontation with Davis, who again says they’re free to go if they would like, the vice president says: “I work for the college. I’m just trying to make sure I’m here to support [inaudible].”

“That’s fine, but ma’am, I do not want to put hands on you,” he said. “If you want to go, you can just leave.”

“I’m not here as a protester, I’m here in my role as a vice president,” she says on the tape, hands still visible in the air.

In a statement to The Beacon, both Gregory Poku and the college affirmed that the vice president, along with several administrators, were in the alleyway with the awareness and support of college leadership. 

“I lament every day that we were unable to prevent the arrests from happening,” Gregory Poku wrote in a statement to The Beacon.

“Although the encampment protest elicited strong feelings among those involved and affected, it also violated multiple city ordinances, including one that explicitly prohibits campsites in public rights-of-way,” the college statement to The Beacon read.

Another clip from Newman’s body camera perspective shows a pile-up of BPD officers and two protesters who are seemingly separated from the group, huddled together in the alley around the entrance to the 2B building. 

One person wearing a black hoodie and black-and-white keffiyeh falls in the middle of five BPD officers and covers their head. Newman grabs the individual and drags them about 10 feet away from the scuffle, flips them on their back, and cuffs them with flex cuffs. Newman says, “Get on your stomach—on your stomach. Hands behind your back.” The person immediately complies and they are arrested.

In footage from later that night, Davis discussed the escalation of force around the entrance to 2B with other state troopers. 

“Boston [PD] is smart,” Davis says to several troopers in his own body camera. ”They put their foot [on the 2B door] so they [students in the dorm] can’t join. But when they first came, they sort of got overwhelmed and got pushed back. A bunch of officers fell, and that’s when all the mass was coming.” 

“It would have been a lot worse if they had come out,” he adds.

Several clips taken immediately after the arrests show BPD officers blocking the entrance to the 2B dormitory. BPD officers appear to physically push against the door while students on the other side bang on the windows and yell to let others in. One of the people inside says, “Let them in,” referring to protesters who were unable to enter the building after the arrests began. 

In one clip in the aftermath of the arrests, Newman approaches the 2B entrance. 

“She wants to push through, let her out,” a BPD officer says about a student behind the door. 

“Let her out,” Newman responds. “We’ll just fucking arrest her.” 

In another instance from Newman’s body camera at 1:49 a.m., two protesters—one wearing a brown leather jacket and the other a black jacket—seem to be getting up from the ground while surrounded by several BPD officers. As the person in the brown jacket begins to walk toward the state transportation building, a BPD officer in plain clothes shoves the person in the black jacket toward the State Transportation Building and shouts at them, “Get out of here.” 

The protester wearing a black jacket falls to the ground. Newman joins the BPD officer and shouts, “Get up and go.” 

The two protesters yell at the officers, shouting, “Get the fuck off me.” The BPD officer and Newman both grab the backs of the protesters’ clothes, pull them to their feet, yell at them to “get out of here,” and push them into the arms of waiting officers. 

Another protester escorted by an MSP trooper passes by, and asks Newman, “Why are you pushing them?”

“Last year, the State Police deployed highly-trained personnel in response to requests for assistance regarding encampments that posed a danger to people’s safety and private property,” wrote a spokesperson for Massachusetts State Police in a statement to The Beacon. “After inviting protesters to leave repeatedly, Troopers completed these complex missions with professionalism focused on achieving peaceful outcomes.” 

But the footage goes beyond the use of physical force. In the footage, one MSP trooper named John Dwyer frequently uses mocking language to describe the protesters and the greater Emerson community. 

Dwyer repeatedly tries to joke about Emerson with fellow troopers. At 2:13 a.m., he and several other troopers talk about the aftermath of the encampment. 

“Surely these kids will get a nice discipline,” one trooper says. 

“And liberal indoctrination,” Dwyer responds. 

In the same instance that Newman speaks to Martin about Bernhardt’s phone call, Dwyer’s camera catches him talking to BPD officers he recognizes, cracking jokes about the college and its students as remnants of the encampment are being cleared. 

After the sweep concludes, around 1:55 a.m., Dwyer walks up to Newman and says to several other BPD officers, “Emerson threw their best at us.” This statement, which is followed by his own laughter, is repeated several times in an apparent attempt to make light of the situation. 

Dwyer clarifies: “Emerson threw the best, of the best, of Emerson at us.” Then he laughs.