HANOVER — The two Dartmouth student activists who refused to leave a tent set up on the lawn outside President Sian Leah Beilock’s office last October were arrested by Hanover police that night at the behest of college officials who wanted them cited for criminal trespass, police reports released this week show.

For nearly nine months, Hanover police and town officials had refused to release the reports. The Valley News had requested the reports under New Hampshire’s Right to Know Law last December, but town officials twice asked a Grafton County Superior Court judge to intervene.

After Judge Steven Houran ruled for a second time last month that the Valley News — and the public at large — was entitled access to the reports, the town had until this week to appeal the decision to the New Hampshire Supreme Court.

Less than one hour before the filing deadline on Monday night, the town, through its lawyer, emailed the reports to Bill Chapman, of Orr and Reno, an attorney with the Concord law firm that represented the Valley News in the case.

At its most recent meeting on Sept. 9, the Hanover Selectboard voted unanimously not to appeal the judge’s decision, but nonetheless held off releasing the reports until the eleventh hour.

“I am pleased the release of these police records is finally resolved. It’s unfortunate that it took nine months and court proceedings to obtain documents the town of Hanover was legally obligated to share,” Dan McClory, publisher of the Valley News Media Group, said on Tuesday.

Police departments in other New Hampshire communities, including Lebanon and Canaan, routinely make arrest reports available to the public upon request.

In his initial ruling, Judge Houran ordered Hanover to pay the Valley News’ legal fees. But when he revisited the case at the town’s request, Houran dropped that requirement. Still, he maintained that the town had to turn over the records.

From the town’s perspective, the judge’s “decision wasn’t a loss, but a clarification of a law that was cloudy,” interim Hanover Town Manager Rob Houseman said in an interview Tuesday.

For months, Hanover, through its attorney, Matthew Burrows, of Gallagher, Callahan and Gartrell in Concord, had argued that releasing the reports would compromise the police investigation into the incident that led to the arrests of Kevin Engel and Roan Wade.

Both students have pleaded not guilty to the misdemeanor charge. Their trials, held simultaneously, are scheduled to resume in Lebanon District Court on Oct. 28 — exactly one year from when Hanover police hauled them away in handcuffs.

The police arrest reports provide a ticktock of the hours preceding and following the arrests. The reports show that police were acting on behalf of college officials who wanted the students cleared from a tent they had pitched in front of the college’s administration building, as part of a student protest calling for Dartmouth to divest from organizations “that are complicit in apartheid and its apparatuses.”

According to the reports, the Dartmouth Safety and Security department, or DSS for short, contacted Hanover cops the evening of Oct. 27 to inform them that 20 or more people were protesting in front of the college’s main administration building.

College security office explained that “they wanted us to speak with two people in a tent out in front of Parkhurst Hall because they wanted the tent taken down,” wrote Hanover police officer Austin Aziz.

When Aziz called back, a sergeant in the college’s security office told him that Dartmouth College wanted both the students “trespassed from Parkhurst, which prevents them from being physically inside and/or outside the building,” the Hanover officer wrote in his report.

At one point that evening, DSS Director Keysi Montas went to meet with Hanover Police Department personnel at the police station. Montas “provided us with Dartmouth’s position that no person would be permitted to erect a tent on the lawn of Parkhurst and their refusal to remove any tents would result in the issuance of a trespass notice,” according to a response report written by Sgt. Matthew Ufford.

Although the demonstration was peaceful, Hanover police prepared for the students’ arrests as if they were undertaking a major police operation by dividing into double-officer teams called “arrest team 1” and “arrest team 2” which were staged behind Parkhurst Hall, out of sight of the protesters.

The arrest teams were instructed to wait until they received orders over police radio to proceed.

After police were informed by college officials that “negotiation had failed” with the students, two Hanover police officers accompanied Montas to the tent, where they explained to the students inside that they were trespassing on college property and being arrested.

The two students peacefully complied and at around 1 a.m. on the morning of Oct. 28 were handcuffed and transported to the police station for processing without incident, the arrest report said.

Two days later, Hanover police said they received an email that Beilock had sent to the Dartmouth community in which she stated that she had been “concerned that the protesting group would become more active and potential for violence,” wrote Lt. Michael Schibuola in a “supplement” to the police report.

“The group protesting had put into writing that they would ‘escalate and take further action,’ ” Schibuola wrote, quoting words from Beilock’s email.

On Tuesday — the day after students returned to campus for the fall term — about 75 people gathered in front of Parkhurst Hall to resume their pro-Palestinian protests.

A college spokeswoman who was watching the demonstration said that students hadn’t received permission for the gathering, which is required under Dartmouth policies.

This time, however, the college didn’t call police.

Contact John Lippman at jlippman@vnews.com.