A dramatic brawl involving dozens of people split along racial lines broke out Saturday evening in Montgomery, Ala., after a Black riverboat captain was attacked by a group of white people who refused to move their illegally parked pontoon boats.
The fight was captured in multiple videos posted to social media, which helped the incident go viral Sunday, prompting both memes and serious discourse.
The conflict started when a group of pontoon boats parked in the dock space reserved for the Harriott II, a city-owned riverboat that takes passengers on short cruises up and down the Alabama River, police said in a press conference Tuesday.
When the co-captain started moving the illegally parked pontoon boats himself, he was mobbed by the boat owners, kick-starting a lengthy brawl that ended with 13 people being taken into police custody.
After a preliminary investigation, Montgomery police have charged three of the white boaters with misdemeanour assault in the third-degree: Richard Roberts, 48; Alan Todd, 23; and Zachary Shipman, 25. One man is already in custody and the other two are set to turn themselves in within the hour, Albert said.
Albert said the investigation into the brawl is still ongoing and more charges could be filed. The Black co-captain who was attacked was taken to hospital after the incident but police found no other reports of injuries.
How the brawl unfolded
Videos posted to social media show in great detail how the Saturday evening brawl unfolded.
The Black co-captain was captured on video untying and moving one of the errant pontoon boats when the group of white boaters come up to him and start arguing.
The co-captain points to the idling riverboat as customers on board who were watching the event unfold started singing, “Move b—h, get out the way,” referencing the 2001 Ludacris hit, in a video shared with local television station WFSA.
The argument continued for several minutes until one of the white boaters charged into the Black worker, pushing him back a couple of feet. The captain is seen on video throwing his hat into the air and fighting back, but he was quickly knocked to the ground and surrounded by about eight of the boaters who continued to beat him.
As this happened, a Black teen who was on board the Harriott jumped into the water and swam several metres to shore to aid the worker. Another Black man in a Nike shirt is seen running into the fray from a different area of the dock to break up the fight.
The fight subsided for a while as the two parties walked to different ends of the dock. Meanwhile, the Harriott, filled with the co-workers of the man who was attacked and numerous customers outraged at the scene, had time to dock.
Instead of clearing the area, the white boaters remained on the dock long enough for several Black men to leap off the riverboat and run over to the illegally parked pontoons. A second, larger brawl broke out involving dozens of people, men and women, with the white boaters now outnumbered.
At one point, an older Black man can be seen on video swinging a folding chair and hitting some of the boaters before being restrained by a police officer. Another angle shows one of the boaters, a white woman, getting pushed into the river.
Montgomery police were seen on video handcuffing multiple participants of the fight, on both sides, as the brawl finally came to an end.
Police captain Albert said authorities have identified the man who wielded the folding chair as 42-year-old Reggie Gray. He has not been charged with any crimes but police are asking him to come in for further questioning.
Montgomery Major Steven Reed praised police for acting “swiftly to detain several reckless individuals for attacking a man who was doing his job.”
“Warrants have been signed and justice will be served. This was an unfortunate incident which never should have occurred. As our police department investigates these intolerable actions, we should not become desensitized to violence of any kind in our community,” Reed wrote in a social media post.
Some online observers have found humour in the brawl, with one video parodying the dramatic fight gaining traction online. The recreation of the fight was complete with the infamous folding chair and the man who swam to shore to join the fight.
Another video shows a man practising “Chair Jutsu” after witnessing his “brothers and sisters take arm in the battle of Montgomery.”
But for Nikole Hannah-Jones, a Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist for the New York Times Magazine, the incident spoke volumes about race relations in Montgomery, a place celebrated as the birthplace of the civil rights movement.
“If you understand the history of Montgomery — one of the most prolific slave-trading cities in the U.S. turned brutally repressive apartheid regime after, and majority Black but JUST got its first Black mayor — it gives so much more perspective to this video,” Hannah-Jones wrote online.
Black people make up over 60 per cent of Montgomery’s population, according to U.S. census data.
Police captain Albert said Tuesday that Montgomery police consulted with the FBI about whether hate crime and riot charges should be filed, given the severity of the brawl and the fact that the white boaters made “obscene” gestures and comments. He said charges of this nature are not appropriate for this incident.
One witness to the fight said she believes alcohol was involved in sparking the conflict. Christa Owen, 47, told NBC she was on the Harriott with her family, and said they felt powerless as they watched the white boaters gang up on the Black captain.
“What was hard is we were all on the boat and witnessing our poor crewman being attacked by these guys, and we couldn’t do anything about it,” Owen said. “It was really difficult to watch, and, like I said, we felt helpless, because we were forced to be spectators.
“It was inexcusable behaviour,” Owen added. “I can’t imagine anyone just disregarding moving their boat 2 feet so that a three-story dinner cruise boat could park back in that spot.”
Comments