Last fall, when a group of students gathered in the designated free-speech zone at East Tennessee State University to hold a Black Lives Matter rally, they were in for a surprise. Tristan Rettke, a 19-year-old freshmen at ETSU showed at Borchuk Plaza wearing a gorilla mask and overalls while carrying a burlap sack with a Confederate flag. Carrying a sign that read “Lives Matter,” Rettke also dangled a banana with a rope around it and offered bananas to the demonstrators. According to the Johnson City Press, he was arrested by campus police and charged with civil rights intimidation for his behavior at the rally on September 28, 2016.
Last week Rettke's attorney, Patrick Denton filed a motion to have the charges dismissed claiming that his client is protected under the same statutes that protect the free speech of the student demonstrators. Denton stated that Rettke’s "Lives Matter" sign was merely a rejection of the idea that only one category of lives matter. When asked by a BLM activist at the demonstration why he was wearing the mask, Rettke responded, “I identify as a gorilla.”
A grand jury later indicted Rettke on the civil rights charge as well as disorderly conduct and disrupting a meeting or procession. Denton’s 20-page motion states the state’s own evidence — a video of the incident — fails to show Rettke’s “conduct was anything more than a clumsily executed expressions of speech — in effect, a counter-protest — that may have offended a number of people and was almost certainly intended to provoke, but which does not fit within any category of unprotected speech and falls far short of fitting within any constitutionally permissible prohibition on protected forms of expression in addition to being constitutionally protected speech.”
The motion echoes a statement released by Denton the day after the incident which said, "Despite what many may feel was objectionable behavior, Mr. Rettke has the same Free Speech protections as those in the 'Black Lives Matter' movement." The statement went on to say, “Above all, he did not intimidate or attempt to intimidate anyone during this incident. Accordingly, we look forward to defending his rights in a court of law. He asks for privacy and space for his family during this difficult and emotionally-trying time."
