The man who sought criminal charges against the co-captain of the Montgomery riverboat in the August brawl said he was not trying to fight when Damieon Pickett punched him.

Zachery “Chase” Shipman, 25, filed the complaint in the Montgomery Municipal Court, which led to Pickett being charged with third-degree assault.

The alleged assault happened during a melee between Harriott II Black crew members and passengers and white occupants of a pontoon boat that was blocking cruise boat’s ability to dock.

Shipman also faces third-degree assault charges in connection with the viral brawl.

It was not immediately clear why Shipman waited three months to seek the misdemeanor warrant.

In his complaint against Pickett, Shipman – one of the people aboard the pontoon boat – said the police had already arrived and had the majority of the crowd under control when he walked down the ramp of the dock.

“As soon as I made it to the bottom of the ramp, I was approached by a guy in a purple shirt trying to fight me,’’ Shipman said in the handwritten complaint. “I had my hand up saying I do not want to fight.”

“The guy in the purple shirt swung at me and I ducked his punch so he would not strike me,’’ Shipman said.

When he stood back up, Shipman said, Pickett punched him in the right side of the face while his back was turned toward Pickett.

“I took off in defense,’’ Shipman said. “I was not trying to fight.”

“He (Pickett) proceeded after me until an officer stopped,’’ Shipman said. “All of this can be found on video footage.”

Shipman said he sustained a bruised cheekbone from Pickett’s punch.

The viral Aug. 5 fight started at Montgomery’s Riverfront Park when crew members of the Harriott II were unable to dock the cruise boat because the pontoon boat from Selma was in the way.

The large fight captured on viral videos showed Pickett, who is Black, attacked by a group of white people as other Black people rushed to his defense.

Crystal Warren, the mother of a 16-year-old deckhand involved in the melee, claimed in a police report that racial slurs were used against Pickett during the brawl.

“You could here (sic) men yelling ‘f–k that n—-r’ and the men came down to fight my son,” she wrote in her report. But in court in October, Warren testified that she did not hear a racial slur.

Pickett was in the courtroom late last month, when pontoon boat occupant Richard Roberts, 48, pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor charges and apologized to Pickett for his actions that day.

“I think under different circumstances we could be friends,” Roberts told Pickett. “You might not think so.”

“I know you were doing your job,” Roberts added.

Roberts received a four-month suspended sentence. Of that, he will serve 32 days in jail in Perry County, with that time to be served on weekends. The sentence also calls for 100 hours of community service and court costs.

A third pontoon boat occupant, Mary Todd, pleaded guilty to harassment late last month. She received a 15-day suspended sentence and was ordered to complete an anger management program and pay court costs.

Another defendant in the incident, Reggie Ray, who is Black and was seen wielding a folding chair in the melee, was charged with disorderly conduct.

All of the defendants who have been arraigned have pleaded not guilty.