The Black co-captain involved in the viral brawl at Montgomery’s Riverfront Park has been hit with third-degree assault charges.
According to AL.com, municipal court records indicate that the complainant in Harriott II co-captain Dameion Pickett‘s case is Zachery “Chase” Shipman, who was on a pontoon boat at the time of the altercation and is also facing a third-degree assault charge.
The viral Aug. 5 brawl involved the Harriott II’s Black crew and passengers and white pontoon boat occupants. The melee started after the pontoon boat from Selma prevented crew members from docking the large vessel.
Viral recordings showed a group of white individuals attacking Pickett while other Black people came to his aid.
In a police report, Crystal Warren, the mother of a 16-year-old crew member participating in the incident, said someone used racial insults 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,” Warren wrote in her report. However, she testified in October that she did not hear a racial slur.
Last month, pontoon boat occupant Richard Roberts, 48, entered a guilty plea to two misdemeanor charges and apologized to Pickett in court for his actions that day, telling him, “I know you were doing your job.”
Roberts was given a four-month suspended sentence. He will serve 32 days in Perry County jail, including weekends, complete 100 hours of community service, and pay court expenses.
Mary Todd, a third pontoon boat passenger, has pleaded guilty to harassment. She was sentenced to 15 days in jail, forced to undergo an anger management program, and told to pay court costs.
Reggie Ray, a Black defendant who was spotted wielding a folding chair, is also facing disorderly conduct charges.
All of the arraigned suspects have pleaded not guilty.
Pickett is identified as a victim in the charges against the pontoon boat occupants and is due for arraignment on Nov. 21.
“I think under different circumstances we could be friends,” Roberts told Pickett in court last month. “You might not think so.”
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