Montgomery riverboat co-captain charged with assault months after brawl
The co-captain of the Montgomery riverboat involved in the August brawl between the vessel’s Black crew members and passengers and white occupants of a pontoon boat has been charged with third-degree assault, according to court records.
The charges against Harriott II co-captain Dameion Pickett, who has previously been identified in court records as Damien Pickett, were filed in Montgomery Municipal Court on Oct. 26.
Neither Montgomery police nor the Montgomery city attorney publicly announced the charges.
Pickett is charged with third-degree assault and is scheduled to be arraigned on Nov. 21, according to municipal court records.
The complainant in Pickett’s case was listed as Zachery “Chase” Shipman, who was on the pontoon boat and also faces a third-degree assault charge in connection with the brawl.
Pickett is listed as a victim in the charges against the pontoon boat occupants.
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.