3 white men in pontoon boat charged in Montgomery brawl; Black man with chair sought for questioning

3 white men in pontoon boat charged in Montgomery brawl; Black man with chair sought for questioning

Three people have been charged in connection with the brawl on Montgomery’s riverfront Saturday night.

Montgomery police Chief Darryl Albert said 13 people were taken into custody Saturday for questioning and all released pending further investigation.

As of Tuesday, warrants have been issued against three men who were on the pontoon boat: Richard Roberts, 48, two counts of third-degree assault; Allen Todd, 23, one count of third-degree assault, and Zachary Shipman, 25, one count of third-degree assault. All charges are misdemeanors.

Roberts is in custody in Selma, said Selma Police Chief Kenta Fulford. The other two are expected to turn themselves in sometime Tuesday, the chief said.

At least some of the suspects have ties to Vasser’s Mini Mart in Selma. Owner Chase Shipman, who has not been charged, posted about the incident on Facebook over the weekend but the Facebook page has since been taken down.

Fulford said Vasser’s remains open and Selma officers are patrolling the store. He said law enforcement agencies monitoring social media have not found any direct threats to the store or its owner.

A fourth man – 42-year-old Reggie Gray – is sought for questioning. The chief described him as the man seen on video “wielding” a folding chair and hitting a woman over the head with that chair

You can watch today’s press conference live here:

The pontoon boat kept the riverboat from docking for about 40-45 minutes, Montgomery Police Chief Darryl J. Albert said. The co-captain was cursed at as he asked the people in the pontoon boat to move, police said.

Suspects have been instructed to turn themselves in. One is in custody and two are expected to surrender soon. Those three are all white males who were on the pontoon boat, Albert said.

A Black man seen striking people with a folding chair is asked to come and speak with police, Albert said.

Albert said 13 people were detained on Saturday night. Albert said they consulted with FBI but said the incident did not fit the criteria of a hate crime.

“It was quite disturbing we saw this kind of activity happening,” Albert said.

A reporter on Monday asked Mayor Steven Reed if he believes the incident was racially motivated.

“We can’t confirm or deny it at this time,” Reed said. “We’re investigating all angles of this and we’re talking to people who were there as we speak.”

A 67-year-old man on Monday told “The Think Tank” with Chris Coleman on V 99.5 in Birmingham he was onboard the riverboat as part of a class reunion from Robert C. Hatch High School in Uniontown.

The man, who did not give his name, said the incident “made me proud of Black people … that privilege thing is over with.”

“There’s no greater love than a man who gives his life for another man,” he told Coleman. “Everybody out there was willing to give their life for that man. It was no joke.”

What do the videos show?

A video clip shared by Josh Moon, a reporter for the Alabama Political Reporter, shows the scuffle beginning as a Black man who appears to be in a docks worker uniform talks to a white man.

Another white man — shirtless — strikes or shoves the Black man.

The incident appeared to unfold largely along racial lines.

The dock worker and the man who struck him engaged in a shoving match before the first white man placed a hand on the Black man in an apparent effort to separate the two.

Two more shirtless white men charged in, one tackling the Black man to the dock and the other piling on, rapidly joined by a fourth shirtless white man, one of whom shoved away another white man who seemed to try to intervene.

Two white women also were there, though it wasn’t clear whether they were supporting the four-on-one fight then in progress or trying to intervene.

A large and vocal audience, consisting of people on the riverboat from which the first video was shot, gathered, as did a crowd overlooking from the dock.

In the first video, the fight begins to break up as a Black bystander joins in. Another jumps off the riverboat, swimming to join in.

The first Black man, identifiable by his black shorts and white shirt, is physically confronted by one of the women.

A second video, taken moments later, shows a group of Black men running off the riverboat.

They converge on a pontoon boat that apparently carried some of the parties involved in the incident.

Within seconds fighting erupts again, between two white men and white woman who were on the pontoon boat, another white man and white woman who appeared to be trying to get to it, and more than a dozen Black men and women.

Police officers or uniformed security guards can then be seen trying to break things up.

The brawling continued for several moments before tapering off. At that point officers began cuffing participants, Black and white.