Two Johns Hopkins University student protesters for Palestine were injured during the university’s response to an encampment Thursday morning, a campus activist group said.

“Within the hour, demonstrators were met with indiscriminate aggression and physical harassment by armed Johns Hopkins Police and Baltimore Police officers, resulting in the injury of two students and destruction of personal belongings,” wrote Hopkins Justice Collective, a group of university students and alumni who organized the protests, in a Friday news release.

A university spokesperson said in a statement Thursday that school officials did not observe any injuries.

More than 30 officers from Johns Hopkins Police and the Baltimore Police Department were deployed to the encampment site on Hopkins’ Keyser Quad on its Homewood campus, the release from the protest group says. Officers threatened arrests and engaged in “threats and verbal harassment well outside the scope of their putative role of enforcers of public safety,” it says.

The non-life-threatening injuries resulted from when “officers pulled canopies down onto students’ heads, significantly bruising protestors and causing wounds to the mouth,” according to the protesters. Photos posted to the group’s Instagram show some of the injuries, including of bruises and a split lip.

“Rather than engage with us in good faith, Hopkins called armed officers on the protest, not hesitating to use violence against any sign of dissent,” Hopkins Justice Collective said.

The Baltimore Police Department did not immediately respond to The Baltimore Sun’s questions Sunday.

Hopkins says the protest was against its policies, as encampments are not permitted. A university spokesperson said Thursday that only Johns Hopkins Public Safety and Johns Hopkins Police responded to the encampment and that the incident was handled in “an orderly and highly professional manner.”

“This was not only the first time that students at a pro-Palestine demonstration at Hopkins have been injured, but it was also the JHPD’s first violent offense since its formation,” Hopkins Justice Collective told The Baltimore Sun in an email Sunday.

The officers primarily involved in the injuries were members of the Johns Hopkins Police Department, the group said.

Hopkins Justice Collective also said the chief of the university’s police force threatened protesters with arrest.

The Johns Hopkins Police Department could not be immediately reached for comment Sunday.

In a statement sent to the school community Friday, Johns Hopkins Chief of Police Branville G. Bard Jr. and Vice Provost for Student Affairs Rachelle Hernandez wrote that the incident took less than an hour to resolve and involved fewer than 25 people.

Later, a smaller group of Hopkins Justice Collective members tried to reoccupy the quad that afternoon, but protesters departed after being asked to leave, the university’s statement says. It added that the Hopkins Justice Collective “is not a recognized student organization, and their members have repeatedly violated university policies.”

“We are taking both of these incidents very seriously. Johns Hopkins supports free speech, including protest and demonstration,” Hernandez and Bard wrote in the statement. “But encampments are not how we engage with one another as a community – and Johns Hopkins does not tolerate antisemitism or other forms of group hatred and discrimination.”

Thursday’s protests are now being investigated by Hopkins’ Office of Student Conduct for violations of the school’s protest and demonstration policies, as well as the Office of Institutional Equity, which will investigate threats, harassment, intimidation or discrimination under Title VI, the statement says. Hopkins recently resolved a Title VI investigation with the U.S. Department of Education.

“We can and should take up hard issues and engage in serious dialogue with those with whom we disagree, but we must do it in a way that allows for genuine, open, and thoughtful debate and enables everyone to participate in those conversations without fear of intimidation,” Hernandez and Bard said in the statement.

Hopkins’ police force has long been controversial, inspiring protests since its inception. Most recently, a coalition of activists including Hopkins faculty protested City Hall demanding a public hearing on the force.

Hopkins Justice Collective is demanding the Baltimore university divest from Israel and Israeli companies, end the presence of Hopkins’ police force and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on campus, and stop work the Hopkins’ Applied Physics Lab does for the Department of Defense.

Student activity in support of Paleswtine exploded last year nationwide after Israel’s offensive in Gaza responding to Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2024, attack. At Hopkins, the student encampment lasted for 13 days after negotiations with school administration yielded a commitment that the school would review students’ demand of divestiture.

In January, the university’s Public Interest Investment Advisory Committee said it would not refer the divestment proposal to the school’s board of trustees, partly due to a lack of consensus among the school’s community.

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