After police swept a pro-Palestinian tent encampment before dawn and arrested 14 protesters at Tulane University, organizers stood outside the Orleans Justice Center Wednesday afternoon and demanded all charges be dropped. 

Authorities have released all 14 protesters, organizers said at a news conference Wednesday afternoon. The group included two Tulane students and five Loyola students, according to the universities. A judge released the protesters without forcing them to post bond but ordered them to return to court at the end of the month, records show. 

The encampment — where protesters pitched 10 tents and rallied for two days on the lawn outside Gibson Hall — ended early Wednesday morning when dozens of law enforcement officers in riot gear descended on the scene and arrested protesters.

The pro-Palestinian group condemned the police action and described a chaotic scene. 

Blu DiMarco, a Loyola University student, said he fled to the neutral ground because he thought it “would mean safety” then walked “for probably over a mile” to escape police presence at the encampment.   

“All I saw was a thicket of SWAT men in riot gear,” he said. “If I looked behind me, all I could see was tanks. I saw cops blocking off any exit — there was nowhere for me to go.” 

Around 3 a.m. Wednesday, officers forced demonstrators off of the campus lawn and onto the St. Charles Avenue neutral ground, where they were arrested. Many police wore body armor and carried weapons, which a Louisiana State Police spokesperson told the Times-Picayune were “less lethal devices” intended for crowd control.  

Loyola student Juleea Berthelot described the moment when police detained them and said protesters held each other as officers held weapons toward them. 

“I was grabbed, shoved, pushed, pulled and thrown into a cop van with five others that I barely knew,” Berthelot said. 

Tulane said Wednesday morning it acted “with the goal of keeping the protestors and our community safe while returning our campus to normal operations” and that it had “issued multiple verbal warnings, written statements, broadcasted messages and erected a huge sign warning demonstrators that they were trespassing and were subject to arrest.”

Despite the semester coming to a close, Berthelot said that organizers plan to rest and regroup. 

“The semester ending is a very tangible thing, but that does not mean the end of the student Palestinian liberation movement,” Berthelot said. 

By Wednesday afternoon, authorities had cleared all tents and belongings from the lawn outside of Gibson Hall. Dozens of wooden pallets — which protesters had constructed in a circle around the encampment — were gone. 

Tall metal barricades surrounded the lawn, and police remained on the scene. 

Tulane said it suspended seven students for their involvement in the encampment. 

Tulane graduate student Kristen Hamilton said they were one of the suspended students and had not been allowed to retrieve belongings or take final exams scheduled for next week. 

“The ongoing intimidation and violence will only strengthen our resolve to shout for a free Palestine and for the liberation of all oppressed people,” Hamilton said. 

Managing Editor Martha Sanchez contributed reporting.