COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – Ohio State University police and the Ohio State Highway Patrol arrested about three dozen people Thursday night for staging a pro-Palestine encampment on campus – carrying out what is likely the highest number of protest-related arrests there since the Vietnam War.

After hours of peaceful protest on the South Oval behind the Ohio Union, dozens of officers clad in riot gear descended on the crowd, handcuffing protesters and carrying them to Franklin County sheriff’s buses parked nearby. Several protesters were arrested earlier in the day for pitching tents on campus, but police watched for hours – occasionally issuing threats of arrest – when hundreds of protesters returned in the evening.