Emerson College student government calls on president to resign after pro-Palestinian encampment arrests

The student government association will send the resolution to the college board of trustees, said Nandan Nair, the association president-elect.

If Bernhardt does not “immediately offer his resignation,” Nair said, student government calls on the board to “terminate his presidency in immediate effect.”

The mass student turnout, and the vote of no confidence resolution, is unprecedented for Emerson’s student government, said Angus Abercrombie, the chair of the association’s audit committee.

“This is not something we take lightly,” Abercrombie said in his argument for the resolution, which he co-authored with Nair and student government president Charlize Silvestrino.

“This is not something we did because we were simply in an emotional place, a stressed place yesterday,” Abercrombie said, adding that the student government association had been considering such a resolution for weeks.

Later Friday, Emerson’s board of trustees issued a statement in support of keeping Bernhardt in his role. A former dean at the University of Texas at Austin, Bernhardt was appointed last year to take the helm at Emerson College.

“At a time when freedom of speech and higher education itself are besieged by outside forces, the Emerson College Board of Trustees encourages our community to come together,” the board’s statement said. “The differences we may have today within Emerson are shades of a shared vision for civil dialogue, peaceful protest, and respect for human diversity.

“We chose Jay Bernhardt as a transformational leader who could bring us together in difficult times. The board remains confident in President Bernhardt’s leadership and unequivocally supports his presidency.”

In the screening room where the student government meeting was held, cheers and claps erupted as at least 16 voting members and other students gave impassioned addresses in favor of the resolution and shared testimonies from the arrests, at times growing emotional.

“I can’t even look at that alleyway without seeing what has happened,” said one student who spoke over Zoom on a screen projected in the room. Several other students expressed hurt and trauma from police violence early Thursday morning.

“They were pressing every part of my body into the ground, and I thought I was going to die,” Owen Buxton, a senior who was arrested, said over a phone call projected through a microphone. As he recounted his experience, several students began audibly crying.

“I was drifting in and out of consciousness in the back of the cruiser,” Buxton said. “It was the worst experience of my entire life.”

Some students who spoke, including one who argued against the resolution, warned of making Bernhardt a “scapegoat” should the resolution be passed and not hold the rest of Emerson’s administration accountable.

Emerson College representatives could not be reached for comment.

“I want to make a promise to all of you now that this does not end here. This is the beginning,” Nair said to the students gathered.

Police said 118 people were arrested at the encampment, part of a national movement by college students demanding a cease-fire in the Israeli-Hamas war and that their universities sever ties with companies that are aiding Israeli military action in Gaza.

Mayor Michelle Wu said in a statement Friday that she and Police Commissioner Michael Cox made the decision together to remove the encampment, while other city politicians and some advocates criticized the decision to dismantle it as unnecessarily harsh.

“The Commissioner and I jointly agreed that the growing encampment needed to be removed in order to address the public safety and fire hazards that it presented,” Wu said in a statement Friday afternoon. “With that shared understanding, it was within the jurisdiction of the Commissioner and his department to plan and oversee the details of implementation. I have full trust and confidence in Commissioner Cox’s leadership and judgment to ensure safety across our city, and I am grateful to our police officers for their daily service.”

On Thursday, Wu said city authorities had worked closely with Emerson officials to “find every opportunity to participate in peaceful protest safely.”

“That means not having fire hazards and not having the health and safety risks of tents in the public right of way,” she said Thursday.

Nair, the student association president-elect, said the level of police response was disproportionate to issue Wu laid out.

“If this was an issue of fire exits or an issue of walkways, you could just send a couple officers or negotiators. You do not need State Police troopers with riot gear,” Nair said, “For Mayor Wu to claim that this was justified and that the force was justified and any of this was justified, quite frankly, is a calamity, and I am extremely disappointed in her remarks.”

In a statement on Thursday, a police department spokesperson said that those who had set up the tent encampment were notified multiple times that they were violating city rules and could be subject to arrest.

A Boston police report on the arrests, released on Friday, said officers responded to the “Cease-fire in Palestine” rally at the encampment around 2 a.m. Thursday. The report noted that one Emerson student had told a local TV station that “we’re not going to leave until our demands are met or we’re dragged away by police.”

Police told demonstrators there had been several 911 calls for noise and disturbance over the past several days at the location, with protesters “harassing people as they walked on Boylston Street and Boylston Place.”

“Police were informed that some of these protesters even went so far as demanding that members of the public identify themselves before allowing them to pass down the pedestrian alley,” the report said.

Tents were also erected on Boylston Place in violation of the city’s encampment ordinance, the report said.

Police told demonstrators they didn’t want to make any arrests but that they had to clear the sidewalk and allow people to pass through the walkway, the report stated. Demonstrators responded with “loud chants” amplified by bullhorns.

“Captain [Sean] Martin explained to the protesters that the Boston Police Department supported their right to protest and that the police did not wish to make any arrests, but they needed to clear the sidewalk and walkway to allow people to pass without obstruction,” the report said. His “pleas to protesters to peacefully clear the walkway were met with loud chants from demonstrators using bullhorns.”

The protesters locked arms and refused to move, police said. Several officers were injured during the arrests.

“Arrest teams proceeded to take suspects into custody who deliberately remained in the walkway,” the report said. “During the time officers were attempting to control protesters and secure their wrists with flexi cuffs, several unidentified protest participants began to push back and attempt to pull arrestees away from police. During these violent encounters,” one officer sustained an injury to his left ankle and foot, another sustained injuries to his shoulder, left leg, and elbow, and another sustained an injury to his right hand that required stitches, the report stated.

The report also said that an officer injured his right wrist while trying to separate interlocking protesters, and another officer was pulled from his bicycle during an encounter with a suspect and was briefly dragged.

Police have said that none of the people arrested reported injuries, but demonstrators and other witnesses said that some protesters were hurt.

Police Sergeant Detective John Boyle, the Boston Police Department’s chief spokesman, said Friday that four of the injured police officers were taken to the hospital.

“I don’t have anything on protesters being transported” to a hospital, he said.

But according to dispatch recordings posted on Broadcastify, the on-scene commander, Captain Sean Martin, asked a dispatcher to tell him what hospitals two protestors were taken to.

”Alpha Charlie One,” Martin said, using his call sign, “can you confirm what hospital two of the protesters went to?”

Boyle said he will review the department records to determine if two protesters were taken to a hospital.

He said one protester has been charged with assault and battery on a police officer, resisting arrest, interfering with a police officer, and disturbing the peace. According to a police report and court records, the person was identified as WIllow Ross Chavez or Willow Carretero Chavez.

His age and last known address weren’t immediately available Friday.

According to police, Chavez had positioned himself and his bicycle in front of a prisoner transport van carrying protesters from Boylston Street to police stations for booking. A uniformed officer on his own bicycle confronted Chavez and “repeatedly directed him to move out of the street to allow the prisoner transport vehicle to leave,” police wrote.

The suspect allegedly ignored the officer’s orders to move out of the street, according to police.

The officer then grabbed hold of Chavez’s bicycle to move him out of the van’s path, police wrote. Chavez “became violent and pulled back” causing the officer “to fall from his police mountain bike and on top of the suspect’s bike,” police wrote.

“After knocking down and dragging” the officer, the suspect ran away,” police wrote.

Officers pursued Chavez on foot into the Boston Common, but he avoided arrest at that point. Police wrote that he was caught by police and arrested. There was no attorney listed in court records for Chavez, who is scheduled to be arraigned in Boston Municipal Court May 3, according to court records.

On Friday, Boston City Councilor Henry Santana said he did not believe that “the handling of the Emerson student protests reflects who we are as a city.”

Officials “need to review this incident in detail to understand who authorized it and exactly how it unfolded — not to point fingers, but so that we can have nuanced discussions about our law enforcement protocols so the City can do better going forward.”

Meanwhile a group of about a dozen Emerson alumni circulated an open letter to the college voicing their displeasure with the police action.

“In your positions as administrators, you have a responsibility to protect the safety and 1st Amendment rights of the students of Emerson College,” they wrote. “We strongly condemn the actions of the Boston police in responding to peaceful protesters with arrests and physical violence. This is contrary to the values of the college you govern and represent.”

Arresting demonstrators stands in “direct conflict” with Emerson’s values, they said.

“As Emerson College alumni we demand an end to the arrest of protesters,” the letter said. “We demand that Emerson administrators forcefully advocate for and defend the free speech rights of students. We demand that the administration take all possible steps to prevent police use of force against protesting students and others. We demand that the administration stand up against the arbitrary arrest of protestors.”

Sean Cotter and Nick Stoico of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Material from prior Globe stories was used in the report.

Madeline Khaw can be reached at maddie.khaw@globe.com. Follow her @maddiekhaw. Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@globe.com. John R. Ellement can be reached at john.ellement@globe.com. Follow him @JREbosglobe.