DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — The people arrested Thursday on Emory University's campus during protests over the conflict in Gaza have now been released from jail. Some headed right back to the university for another protest scheduled for Friday night. At least two faculty members were among those taken into custody.
11Alive saw Emory economics professor Caroline Fohlin walk out of jail. A judge granted her a $50 bond after she was seen being taken into custody by police Thursday. Police charged her with disorderly conduct and simple battery of an officer. Most of the other defendants were granted signature bonds and did not have to pay anything.
Emory law student Martin Berg is just weeks away from graduation. Friday evening, he walked out of jail flanked by fellow protesters. Berg said he was arrested within 10 to 20 minutes of checking out the protest on campus.
"Inside, we were throwing around rolls of toilet paper, trying to keep hope up as much as we could," Berg said. "What we were going through did not eclipse the far greater pain that children, women, fathers, mothers are going through in Gaza right now. The pain they're experiencing is primary. Ours is an afterthought."
Berg called the arrests a rapid and violent response to what he called a peaceful protest. He's calling on Emory to stop financially supporting Israel while the war in Gaza continues. Several schools across the country have seen similar protests play out on college campuses.
Emory graduate student David Meer walked out of jail side-by-side with Berg. He agrees with a letter some Emory faculty sent the school criticizing the decision to call police and condemning the use of force, the arrest of students and faculty and statements made by Emory's president, Greg Fenves.
"They were scared and they reacted accordingly," Meer said. "They got tackled. There were chokeholds, heads on the ground. They were being told to get on the ground as their head was being rubbed in."
Emory's president issued a letter to the school community Friday morning addressing the previous day's protests, which turned chaotic after a heavy police response cleared an encampment that had been set up in the early morning.
The Emory students and staff involved in the protests will be allowed back on campus for classes. At least four of the defendants who are not affiliated with the university are banned from campus. According to the presiding judge, each defendant's next court date will be in state court within the next seven to 10 days.
"It's heartbreaking and infuriating to see, and it only galvanizes this movement," Berg said. “We saw it with Columbia, tons of people arrested. It only entrenched them more.”