Uncivil unrestAfter hearing his girlfriend insulted too many times, a USF student chokes a visiting evangelist outside Cooper Hall.
Media Credit: Marlow Gum
Religious speaker Micah Armstrong stands with his broken sign outside Cooper Hall on Tuesday. Student Steve Jorgenson, angered by Armstrong's insults toward his girlfriend, broke the sign over his knee. It's not uncommon for the provocative sermons of evangelists preaching outside Cooper Hall to decay into angry yelling matches. But on Tuesday, insults escalated to physical violence.
Around 12:45 p.m. in the courtyard outside Cooper Hall, USF student Steve Jorgenson rushed evangelist Micah Armstrong, wrapped his hands around the preacher's throat and choked him for several seconds. Jorgenson then yanked off Armstrong's blue-and-yellow sandwich sign and snapped it over his knee. The front of the sign read "God Hates Sin."
The physical confrontation came after Armstrong repeatedly called Jorgenson's girlfriend, Taylor Engert, a "slut," "whore," and "loose sorority slut" during a sermon thick with hellfire and damnation.
"I definitely lost my temper," said Jorgensen, a junior majoring in political science. "That's something that I rarely do. It was a reaction, and I'm kind of disappointed in myself for letting something like that bother me. I just couldn't tolerate anyone saying those things to my girlfriend."
After breaking the sign, Jorgenson shoved Armstrong and briefly choked him a second time before Engert and a third student persuaded him to stop. Armstrong never retaliated during the incident, and his only reaction was to step back as Jorgenson, a 6-foot-2, 225-pound flanker for the USF rugby team, choked him.
When the altercation ended, Armstrong appeared stunned but continued his sermon with the broken pieces of his sign lying in the grass behind him. The signs other side read "Ye Must be Born Again" and "Whosever is born of God does not commit sin," pieces of verses from the Book of John. Jorgenson and Engert stood and listened a few feet away before leaving together several minutes later.
"Beware men, there are loose women on campus out to seduce you," Armstrong said. "You wonder why you don't see any crackwhores in Ybor City anymore. These women are putting them out of business."
Jorgenson said the insults started while he and Engert lunched with friends at the courtyard picnic tables. Engert sat on Jorgenson's knee. Armstrong harshly chastised them for "premarital fondling" and then began the namecalling. This prompted Jorgenson to stand and demand an apology. When only insults came back, he snapped.
"It took a lot of restraint for me not to hit him," Jorgenson said. "I'm not a violent person."
Armstrong was not seriously injured in the incident and showed no visible signs of injury. After his sermon, he gathered the pieces of his sign and left without incident. He seemed in good spirits.
"We're going to do the Christian thing and forgive him," Armstrong said.
Shortly after Jorgenson and Engert left the courtyard and Armstrong continued his sermon, University Police officer Sgt. Drew Cafarelli questioned them about the incident. Cafarelli responded to a third-party complaint of a disturbance and assault received by UP and used a camcorder to document the remainder of Armstrong's sermon.
"When you get into a woman's face and call her a whore, slut, pregnant dog and tell her she's going to hell without knowing her, there's a limit," Cafarelli said.
Engert was not the only student Armstrong insulted. Abdullah Ramadham, an exchange student from Saudi Arabia, said Armstrong called him a "terrorist."
Jorgenson also said Armstrong directed anti-Semitic slurs at one of his friends. During his sermon, Engert also condemned homosexuals.
"I've got news for you homosexuals, sodomites and lesbians who think that it's OK to be gay," Armstrong said. "God says it's not OK. It's not OK to be perverted. It's not in your DNA. What you need is to be converted."
About 100 students in the courtyard witnessed the incident, and after the initial shock, most seemed to take it in stride.
"He's provoking hatred and emotions, and he's asking for a response, positive or negative," said Wes Thompson, a senior majoring in communications. "I think he got what he deserved, and I don't think the student should be charged with a crime."
Armstrong, who said he has preached at campuses in Florida, Georgia, North and South Carolina, and Missouri, has been arrested twice in South Beach for disorderly conduct and a noise ordinance. He defended his pugnacious speaking style.
"I think it's the biblical way," Armstrong said. "People need to know they're condemned before they can get salvation."
Jorgenson, who said he was a Christian, didn't find much biblical or even religious in Armstrong's methods.
"It's not Christian at all," Jorgenson said. "I don't think any Christian in their right mind would say that they agree with him. He has no Christian values or religious values at all. I don't know of any religion that preaches hate like that."
UP spokesman Sgt. Mike Klingebiel said UP gets calls about heated exchanges between students and evangelists a few times a semester, but he couldn't recall a time when it became physical. As long as preachers don't physically prevent
students from getting to class, become disruptive enough to interfere with learning or incite "civil unrest," their presence is protected by the First Amendment, Klingebiel said.
"Our role is to balance the First Amendment rights of the individual with the rights and functions of the institution," Klingebiel said. "We want to make sure that all parties involved stay within earshot, but not within striking distance."