A sign marks an entrance to the UTC campus.Talking it up at UTC
Preacher woman Angela Cummings — claiming to be sharing Christ but actually spewing hate: “You adulterers and adulteresses… Lesbo alert, lesbians are on this campus…” — has freedom of speech. So she has been screaming out her message on the sidewalks of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga campus.
A biochemistry student, Cole Montalvo, implored of her: “Hey, Ma’am: If you’re trying to spread the good word, maybe you shouldn’t be telling everyone they’re sinners.”
Unlike Cummings, Montalvo was courteous. Unlike Cummings, he was advocating a course of love, rather than one so full of darkness.
Of course, Montalvo, too, has freedom of speech, but you wouldn’t know it from watching a four-minute video of the UTC encounter. During that time, and after his suggestion that Cummings might lighten up a bit, UTC campus police jumped Montalvo as he was pulling away to leave the circle of orange cones the school gave the street preacher for “security.”
Four police and security officers pushed Montalvo to the ground. One officer maced him as while another officer held his hands behind him. Then security officers rolled him to his stomach and handcuffed him. The only real resistance Montalvo ever showed was to ask what he did to be arrested. He is charged with disorderly conduct, inciting to riot, obstruction of justice and resisting arrest.