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Pro-Palestine protesters who allegedly assaulted a police officer in August are one step closer to trial, after District Court judge Kareem A. Morgan set a hearing date for Nov. 18.

The compliance and election hearing gives the state more time to provide evidence to the defendants — including body camera footage, police reports, and booking photos — while the three protesters can decide whether to pursue a judge or jury trial.

Three protesters — Anna N. Epstein, David Fleig, and Bronte Wen — appeared in Cambridge District Court on Wednesday to face charges of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest at a pro-Palestine demonstration in Harvard Square. Fleig and Wen were also charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, a felony charge.

But Wen, who was previously charged for an attack involving explosives, was let off the hook for the more serious charge. Cambridge Police claimed she threw a “balloon filled with an unknown substance” onto an officer, who reported feeling a “burning sensation,” but the state ultimately decided to not pursue the charge.

The three individuals appeared in court alongside several supporters, who sat nearby in the courtroom. Wen and Epstein, who sat next to each other before their case was called, were joined by several peers on the same bench, with more seated on the bench directly behind them. Most wore keffiyahs and many — including Wen — wore face masks.

The incident, which took place outside of the Harvard Square Capital One cafe in early August, sparked fierce backlash in the city. CPD handcuffed the three protesters after pushing them to the ground, according to videos and images reviewed by The Crimson. Several protesters were seen pouring water on their eyes, apparently irritated by a chemical agent. CPD later confirmed the use of pepper spray — despite city law prohibiting the use of chemical irritants as crowd control during protests.

CPD later wrote in a statement that the use of pepper spray was not used as crowd control, but was instead used to target “specific individuals who had refused to comply and were actively assaulting police officers.”

The three individuals took to the street to protest Capital One’s loans to an Israeli weapons manufacturer. Demonstrators were affiliated with Boycott, Divest, Sanctions Boston — a pro-Palestine advocacy group that had protested in that location for the preceding two weeks.

Officers had barricaded several parking spaces before the protest began, marking off a space with metal barriers and allowing demonstrators to march without entirely blocking the cafe entrance. One individual began pushing the barricade out toward the street roughly an hour into the protest. An officer grabbed the protester by her arm and apprehended her after she ran away from the barricade.

Other protesters tried to intervene in the first arrest, according to demonstrators, and police began pushing protesters and using pepper spray. Protesters argued the incident began after police had tried to push the metal barriers inward and contain the demonstration into a smaller area, while police said the protesters attempted to move the barriers out further into the street.

A video also captured police officers and protesters pushing against each other along JFK St. before an officer eventually arrested a person on the ground outside Capital One. Protesters also started yelling expletives at the officers, including a chant that compared CPD to the Ku Klux Klan and the Israeli military.

The dispute marked the first major altercation at a protest near the University’s campus in months — but it is not the only run-in that protesters have recently faced with Cambridge Police.

A man allegedly drove his car towards demonstrators in Harvard Square during another pro-Palestine protest in August. He repeatedly shouted expletives at protesters, including calling demonstrators “Nazis” and hurling homophobic slurs at them. He then opened his car door, brandishing an axe and threatening to kill them.

A video of the incident circulated widely on social media in the days following the confrontation, which occurred less than one week after the protest outside of Capital One.

Matthew C. Freeman, a 40-year-old man from Billerica, was arraigned in early September on charges of assault with a dangerous weapon and a civil rights violation in relation to the incident. Freeman pleaded not guilty to all charges.

—Staff writer Megan L. Blonigen can be reached at megan.blonigen@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X at @MeganBlonigen.