Chaos on Tremont Street: Wu’s “safest city” torn apart as pro-Palestine mob floods downtown in night of smoke, screams, and blue lights

Wednesday, October 8, 2025
4 min read
MDN Staff
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Chaos on Tremont Street: Wu’s “safest city” torn apart as pro-Palestine mob floods downtown in night of smoke, screams, and blue lights

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BOSTON — Smoke. Sirens. Screams. And somewhere under it all — Mayor Wu’s “safest-city” slogan, smoldering on Tremont Street.

What began as a so-called “rally for Palestine” on Boston Common erupted into a rolling riot Tuesday night, swallowing downtown in smoke and chaos. Police say hundreds poured into Tremont Street — blocking cars, pelting officers, and kicking in the sides of police cruisers as blue lights tore through the haze.

The flyers had warned it wouldn’t be peaceful. Circulating online for days, they showed masked agitators and a Boston police car engulfed in flames. The title? “Flood Downtown for Palestine: Week of Rage.” Boston got both.

By 7 p.m., the Common looked like a combat zone. Protesters screamed ‘BPD is KKK’ as smoke canisters hissed and sirens wailed over the crowd. Officers in helmets were shoved back toward Winter Street as the mob surged forward. One cruiser was surrounded and battered — another was covered in smoke. Four cops were hospitalized.

Thirteen people were dragged off in cuffs — The Tremont Thirteen — their revolutionary glamour fading fast under fluorescent lights at booking.

  • Osama Khatib, 26, Watertown

  • Roder Atwood, 21, Somerville

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  • Atalanta Carrig-Braun, 20, Boston

  • Haley MacIntyre, 24, Dorchester

  • Madeline Weikel, 27, Watertown

  • Jacob Pettigrew, 22, Malden

  • Amun Prophet, 25, Allston

  • Laith Hintzman, 19, Boston

  • Benjamin Choucroun, 20, Medford

  • Owen Woodcock, 26, Boston

  • Prahlad Iyengar, 25, Boston

  • Styx Hatch, 19, Boston

  • Gabrielle Smith, 28, Cambridge

Police say most face charges of disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and disturbing the peace. One — Roder Atwood of Somerville — allegedly attacked officers and is charged with assault and battery on a police officer and serious bodily injury.

As the last sirens faded and the smoke drifted off toward the Common, downtown Boston looked less like the “safest big city in America” and more like something out of a foreign broadcast — debris in the street, glass glittering under the streetlights, and shaken tourists filming it all.

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