Washington University students have been protesting with thousands of St. Louis residents since a St. Louis County grand jury’s decision Monday not to indict Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson for killing teenager Michael Brown in August, with some being hit with tear gas and pepper spray and one being arrested.

With St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch’s announcement of the decision not being made until 8 p.m. Monday night, planned protest activities on campus, such as a march and rally on Mudd Field, were scrapped in favor of joining the local protests. The main protest sites students joined were in Ferguson, where Brown was killed and Shaw, Mo., where black teenager Vonderrit Myers was killed in October, on Monday night and in Clayton and downtown St. Louis on Tuesday.

Protests have continued throughout the St. Louis area since Monday night, with businesses set on fire and broken into in Ferguson and police deploying tear gas and pepper spray to quell protests. According to reports from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, around 120 people have been arrested, most on misdemeanors, since Monday evening.

A few hours before the announcement, students interested in protesting met in Tisch Commons to prepare. Student organizers discussed topics such as the importance of going with a group, what to bring to a protest, and different hand and color signals that might be used.

A member of St. Louis Students in Solidarity teaches a crowd of students about hand signals that are used at street protests. Students met in Tisch Commons Monday evening to prepare plans for protesting in Ferguson and Shaw.

Organizers suggested that students without much protesting experience go to Shaw, where the protesting was expected to be calmer, rather than Ferguson. The Shaw protesters marched north along South Grand Boulevard before eventually walking on Interstate 44, which they shut down in both directions.

Junior Cameron Kinker, a member of the student activist group STL Students in Solidarity, was in Shaw until around midnight Monday and described the atmosphere while he was there as “very, very peaceful.”

“We shut down highway 44, so that’s when the police put on their riot gear and started having a more militarized response to protesters,” Kinker said.

Alex Leichenger | Student Life

Hundreds of protesters march on Interstate 44 on Monday night as part of a group protesting in the Shaw neighborhood. Along with Ferguson, Shaw was one of two main protest sites Monday night after the announcement of the grand jury’s decision not to indict Darren Wilson.

Later that night in Shaw, a group of protesters was hit with tear gas on the corner of Arsenal Street and Grand.

Junior Karisa Tavassoli, who was among the protesters affected by the tear gas, was surprised by the police’s actions because though they had initially told the protesters to leave, the police officers had left after the protesters moved to the sidewalk.

“The police left and we were like ‘yay, we won, cool,’ [and] started chanting. It was really cool; it was a really good sense of community,” Tavassoli said. “And then a few minutes later the police came back and out of nowhere started shooting rubber bullets at us, and tear gas at us.”

The protesters then went inside the nearby MoKaBe’s Coffeehouse, where Tavassoli said they attempted to treat those affected by the tear gas and leave but were blocked off by police spraying additional tear gas through the back of the building.

Several University students were also hit by tear gas in Ferguson on Monday. Freshman Camille Borders described the experience as frightening and confusing.

“We were standing with the signs and everything for the protest, and then they started throwing tear gas. I was confused, I didn’t know what was going on initially…As we were walking back up the hill, they continued to throw tear gas up the hill, and that’s when I really freaked out because I couldn’t see anything and my eyes were watering and my throat was on fire,” Borders said.

In downtown St. Louis on Tuesday, a group that marched onto Interstate 70 was met by police and told to disperse.

Senior Keaton Wetzel had been part of the protest in Shaw that shut down I-44 the night before, but he said the police response on Tuesday was “less tolerant.”

“I was at the front of the group, sat down, and was pepper sprayed probably from about 40 feet away,” Wetzel said. “Got in my eyes, over my hands, my chest.”

After getting the spray flushed out of his eyes, Wetzel continued, he was sprayed again. “That sucked. It feels worse than the worst sunburn I’ve ever had. It effectively blinds you,” he said.

Wetzel was one of four people arrested at the downtown protest. He was charged with a municipal ordinance violation, a common charge handed out in St. Louis since Monday night.

Wetzel said he had been planning on protesting because he assumed that Wilson would not receive an indictment.

“The decades-long pattern of police officers killing unarmed black men and women—it’s such an obvious injustice that if I did stay home and not do anything, I don’t think my conscience would be able to live with that. It felt like it was my duty to sort of do what I could to fight these injustices,” Wetzel said.

Kinker said he felt that participating in the protests was his duty because he lives in St. Louis.

“I think our city needs it…I think it is my responsibility to stand with my city in this moment of intense distress and heartbreak and demand better for my city and demand better for the people who live here, especially people who are criminalized by police every day and are not safe every day,” Kinker said. “I got a lot of texts from family members or friends asking me if I was safe, but who’s asking if the black men who live in this city are safe every day?”

University students also joined a protest in Clayton Tuesday morning, which Kinker described as smaller than Monday night’s marches and also peaceful.

“It was very positive, but it was a smaller crowd and a more subdued atmosphere compared to last night, where tensions were much higher,” he said.

On-campus demonstrations since Brown’s death in August have included a silent march around the Danforth campus in August, in which hundreds of students participated, and a “dead-in,” where members of STL Students in Solidarity, a group of student activists from colleges and universities around the city, lay in the Danforth University Center during lunch.

Joohyeong Lee | Student Life

Students crowd around TVs in Bear’s Den to watch St. Louis County prosecutor Bob McCculloch announce the grand jury’s decision Monday night. The grand jury decided not to indict Darren Wilson for killing teenager Michael Brown on Aug. 9.

On Monday night, students crowded around TV screens in Bear’s Den and the DUC to watch McCulloch speak. A set of conversation circles was slated to take place in Tisch Commons after the decision, but few students stayed in the DUC after it was announced.

University students also took to social media to voice their feelings on the decision and ensuing protests, with many expressing thoughts of hope for the St. Louis region and using #FergusonDecision, #BlackLivesMatter and #alllivesmatter hashtags.

In anticipation of the aftermath of the decision, the University closed its West Campus facilities on Tuesday, according to an email sent on Monday afternoon by Chancellor Mark Wrighton.

UPDATED: Wednesday, Nov. 26 with new information about students being hit with tear gas and pepper spray; later updated with a change to the charge given to Wetzel.

With additional reporting by Manvitha Marni and Emily Schienvar.