News reached harblextips as we heard about the Alabama Riverboat Brawl viral video that was trending online recently. A witness says a racial slur was used before a brawl Saturday at a riverfront dock in Montgomery, Alabama, a court document shows. The mother of one of the victims in the altercation alleged in a sworn statement to police that “you could hear men yelling ‘f**k that n***er’” as the Black co-captain of a riverboat tried to move a pontoon boat occupying the riverboat’s docking location. Soon afterward, the confrontation escalated into a large caught-on-video fight that has since led police to issue arrest warrants for three men, all of them from the private pontoon boat, Montgomery Police Chief Darryl J. Albert said in a news conference Tuesday. Richard Roberts, 48, was charged with two counts of third-degree assault, while Allen Todd, 23, and Zachary Shipman, 25, were each charged with one such count, Albert said Tuesday, describing the three as White men. At that time, one of the men was in custody while the other two were expected to turn themselves in. They had yet to do so as of Wednesday morning, Mayor Steven Reed told: “CNN This Morning.” CNN’s attempts to reach each of the men for comment have been unsuccessful. Alabama brawl turns the spotlight on Montgomery’s racial history The victims in the assaults were identified as Damien Pickett, the co-captain, and a 16-year-old White boy who had transported Pickett to the dock in a small boat.
Leave a Reply