Cole Montalvo, the UTC student who got arrested for confronting a female preacher on campus, gets up to speak to his attorney before appearing in Gary Starnes’s general sessions court in this file photo.A year after he was arrested for crossing a “free speech” perimeter at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga to question a controversial street preacher, Cole Montalvo will get a trial on Nov. 10.
Now 25, Montalvo was a graduate biochemistry student when he was grappled into submission Nov. 13 by campus security officers and police while attempting to talk to preacher Angela Cummings. They cited Montalvo on charges of resisting arrest, inciting to riot, disorderly conduct and obstruction of justice.
His trial before Hamilton County Criminal Court Judge Rebecca Stern will be on a single charge of resisting arrest. The other three counts were dropped at a January hearing.
“The arrest was illegal to begin with, but that’s not a defense,” said Montalvo’s attorney, Franklin Chancey, of Cleveland, Tenn.
Under Tennessee law, you can’t resist when an officer arrests you, whether the arrest is legal or not, he said.