Give him a break, he was identifying as a gorilla. Update to this previous story.
A state prosecutor asked a judge on Monday for more charges against a former East Tennessee State University student charged in September after an incident at a peaceful Black Lives Matter protest on campus.
Tristan Rettke was charged with civil rights intimidation after he dressed in overalls, wore a gorilla mask and dangled bananas tied with rope in the faces of people participating the protest.
Rettke, 18, Hendersonville, appeared in Washington County General Sessions Court Monday for a preliminary hearing in the case, which stems from a Sept. 28 incident at Borchuck Plaza, an area outside ETSU’s Sherrod Library designed as a free speech zone. Assistant District Attorney Will Monk asked Judge Robert Lincoln to add disorderly conduct and inciting a riot charges to the warrant.
Three men who witnessed Rettke’s alleged intrusion on the otherwise peaceful protest, which was organized to highlight a rash of law enforcement shootings of unarmed black men, said they felt his actions were threatening and racially intimidating, included one who pulled out his phone to video the incident and stream it live on Facebook as it unfolded.
Thomas Madison, who was not part of the rally but stopped by on his way to a class, said he began videoing and asked Rettke what was his purpose for being there. On the video, Rettke can be heard saying in a muffled voice that he was there to support the protesters.
“He said, ‘I identify as a gorilla,’” Madison testified. “I took that as a reference to me being black. And I took him wearing a mask at a Black Lives Matter protest … the fact black people historically been called monkeys.”
Madison also testified that he took the bananas being tied up with rope as “a very serious threat … when you come offer me a banana this close to my face, it’s calling me a monkey, and I’m not a monkey,” he said, demonstrating that Rettke was just inches from Madison’s face during the encounter.
Jaylen Grimes testified Rettke wrapped a rope around the bananas over and over, then pulled the ends of the rope, which sliced through the fruit. Grimes said he viewed the rope as a noose and took it as a reference to historical lynching of African Americans.