College students in Boston were dancing in the streets Friday night after a week of turmoil.
The fatal bombings at the Boston Marathon on Monday locked down many higher education institutions in the Boston metro area, forcing them to cancel classes.
Just as colleges began to recover from the attack, a Thursday night shooting on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus left one officer dead. One of the bombing suspects was killed in a shoot-out with police a short time later, and a subsequent manhunt for remaining bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev put schools back on lockdown Friday.
When police captured Tsarnaev Friday evening, it was a relief for all Bostonians, including college students.
It wasn't long before students filled the streets in celebration.
CNN's Poppy Harlow estimated about 400 Northeastern University students gathered outside to celebrate:
"We've all been watching the TV, the computer, the live updates since the beginning of this whole thing," Myles Marcus, a student at Berklee College of Music, told CNN. "I just feel relieved. I feel like I can go back to school now and know that I'm safe."
Hundreds of students also gathered outside Simmons College not far from Fenway Park, Reuters reported.
Videos uploaded to YouTube showed crowds of college students singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" and cheering for the Boston Police Department, chanting "BPD! BPD!"
Zach Tucker, an Emerson College student, told the Boston Globe they were simply appreciative of the job police have done.
"Sometimes college students have a somewhat contentious relationship with police, and you see none of that tonight," Tucker said.
Students shared photos from Boston of the crowds waving American flags.
The spontaneous celebrations were reminiscent of 2011 when college students poured into Boston Common waving American flags after Osama bin Laden was killed.
Lindsay Kupser, also a student at Berklee, told the CBC it was "relieving" to be able to freely go outside.
"I don't feel fearful anymore, that's the biggest thing," Kupser said.