 "Photo: Melanie Hardy")
 "Photo: Justin Bleiler")
For David Cole, the final straw came when John Hofmeister, the president of Shell Oil Co., said the world is not running out of oil during his presentation Wednesday at Mitchell Hall.
Cole, a former Delaware Technical and Community College student, rose from his seat in the front row, turned to face the audience and spread his legs apart to steady himself. He crossed his arms behind his back and stared, expressionless, away from the speaker.
When ushers approached and asked him to leave, he whispered a decline. Cole took one step back to sit on the edge of the stage.
He remained there for approximately 45 minutes.
Hofmeister concluded his lecture with a plea for an end to the "paralysis of partisanship" and the need to explore "cheap oil" on federal land, a reference to Shell's recent attempts to tap oil reserves in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northern Alaska.
The protester returned to his seat and raised his hand throughout the question and answer session. After a half hour, Cole broke his silence to ask a question, although moderator and Global Agenda lecture series director Ralph Begleiter had not, and would not, call on him.
"You've had your moment in the sun," Begleiter said, before asking Public Safety to escort the protester from the building.
"I am passively resisting arrest," Cole said on his way up the aisle, flanked by officers. "I have done nothing wrong."
Cole said he had three questions for the president of Shell that went unanswered as he was arrested and charged with trespassing, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.
Begleiter, a professor of communication, said it is not a protester's job to walk the fine line between expressing his or her protest and respecting others' right to speak. That job falls to the moderator.
"I have a room full of people to whom I have a responsibility, not just me and the protester," he said. "My job is to keep the event on keel."
When Cole first stood in protest, Begleiter said he scanned the audience for cues about what was happening because he could not see the protester's face.
"If I saw the audience looking at him and interacting with him, I would've gotten a cue," he said. "I made a conscious decision. He's not doing anything, so I let it be."
It was also a conscious decision, Begleiter said, to ignore the protester during the question and answer session that proceeded Hofmeister's presentation.
"There were a lot of people with questions and none of them had had the chance to express their point of view," he said. "[The protester] had expressed himself for 45 minutes."
Begleiter said he likely would have called upon Cole if he had sat in his seat through the presentation and raised his hand at the end. By standing up while Hofmeister was speaking, he singled himself out.
There were two ways to treat Cole when he stood and began to ask his question without being acknowledged, he said.
"One way to do it is to appease the protester," Begleiter said. "In this case, my feeling was that wouldn't have diffused the situation."
The moderator said he feared others would do the same thing or that Cole would take over the presentation by taking the opportunity to lecture the invited speaker.
Begleiter said the audience came to hear the speaker, not the protester.
Walking from the scene of her boyfriend's arrest to Public Safety headquarters, Chelsea Zaldivar said Cole never wanted the spotlight, only answers.
"I kind of knew something would happen," Zaldivar said. "I knew he was depressed about the state of the world."
She said she did not foresee Cole's protest, but was proud he stood up for what he believed.
"If they just let him ask a question, none of this was going to happen," Zaldivar said.
She had remained seated and was one of the first to ask Hofmeister a question, though she said she was dissatisfied with the answer.
Cole said Hofmeister skirted the real issues, never addressing the root causes of global warming or rising oil prices.
"I stood up when he started telling bold-faced lies," he said.
Chief among Cole's concerns is that the oil company is not doing enough to solve a problem it helped create. He said the $100 million Hofmeister said Shell spends each year researching alternative energy sources is a drop in the bucket.
According to Shell's investor reports, the company made $7.8 billion in the first quarter of 2008 alone.
"He probably knows the year in which we won't have any more oil left," Cole said. "He's putting his energies into ensuring he'll control the supply of oil, and when it's gone, he'll control the alternative energies."
As for his protest Wednesday night, Cole said it was spur of the moment and unplanned.
"I recognize there were things I shouldn't have done," he said. "But that's what happens when you act without thinking about it carefully.
"One of the things that upset me most was when the officer was on top of me, wrestling my arm away from me, and he said, 'You know what the worst part is, man? I agree with you.' "
Sophomore Nate Wells said he has known Cole since high school and thought the police used excessive force in their arrest.
"Dave was obviously all fired up," Wells said. "But I thought they abused their power in cuffing him and running him outside the building."
The police also threatened to arrest a bystander, Conor Hughes-Lampros, who has known Cole since last year. He said he was held against the brick wall of Mitchell Hall, and said he received a scrape on his shoulder, but was not arrested.
"I think as students we should have the right to question what's going on," Hughes-Lampros said. "It's our responsibility to stand up."
With a court date, fines and legal fees on the horizon, Cole said he is searching for a pro-bono lawyer. He said because of his low income, he is unable to take care of the costs of his protest.
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