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Police Investigate Alabama Riverfront Brawl

The Montgomery police are seeking the arrest of several people in connection with a fight that broke out over the weekend when a group of white boaters attacked a Black boat captain.

By Remy Tumin and Chang Che

Update: All three men who were wanted in the brawl have turned themselves in . A woman also turned herself in to Montgomery police.

The police in Montgomery, Ala., are expected to charge at least three people in connection with a brawl that broke out over the weekend when a group of white boaters attacked a Black boat captain at the city’s popular Riverfront Park. The violent scene, which bystanders captured on video, has stoked memories of the city’s racist history.

The police issued arrest warrants for three men and more might follow, said Darryl J. Albert, the chief of the Montgomery Police Department, at a news conference on Tuesday. Richard Roberts, 48, faces two warrants for third-degree assault, a misdemeanor; Allen Todd, 23, faces one warrant for third-degree assault; and Zachery Shipman, 25, also faced a warrant for third-degree assault. All three men have been asked to turn themselves in; none of them are residents of Montgomery, the police said.

One of the men has already turned himself in to the police in Selma, Ala., Chief Albert said, and the other two are expected to turn themselves in later Tuesday afternoon.

A fourth man, Reggie Gray, 42, was wanted for questioning by the police after videos showed him wielding a folding chair during the incident, Chief Albert said.

While the police and federal authorities are still reviewing video evidence, the Montgomery police are not pursuing hate crime or riot charges at this time, he said.

“When the incident took place, the Police Department didn’t have the luxury of videos that we all have seen now,” Chief Albert said. “Now that we have more information, more charges are pending.”

Bystanders captured the incident on video from multiple angles that showed how a lively Saturday afternoon on the Alabama River turned into an all-out brawl. The fight, which seemed largely to be divided along racial lines, garnered a large social media response, including cartoons , TikTok videos , a song and even re-enactments , with many users reacting to a seeming reversal of fate along one of America’s most brutal historical markers of the slave trade. The fight occurred at the same dock where enslaved Africans arrived by steamboat to be sold in the center of town.

The altercation began when a group of white boaters docked a pontoon in an area designated for a larger riverboat on the Gun Island Chute portion of the Alabama River in Montgomery. The riverboat, known as the Harriott II, offers cruises with dining and live entertainment along a stretch of the river.

As the Harriott tried to re-dock after an outing with 227 passengers aboard, its captain attempted to contact the owners of the pontoon for 45 minutes via the public announcement service, instructing them to move their vessel, Chief Albert said.

They responded with “gestures, curse words and taunting,” he said.

After this, Dameion Pickett, a co-captain of the Harriott, took a ride on a small boat to the dock so he could talk to them, Chief Albert said. When Mr. Pickett, who is Black, tried to move the pontoon just enough to allow the Harriott to dock, the owners of the pontoon confronted him “in a very hostile manner” and attacked him, Chief Albert said.

“The co-captain was doing his job,” he said.

Several members of the Harriott’s crew “came to Mr. Pickett’s defense,” Chief Albert said, “engaging in what we all have seen since on social media.”

Videos showed one of the white men then punching Mr. Pickett, who was jumped on and beaten by the other white boaters; one of them appears to try to place Mr. Pickett in a headlock. Other videos show another Black man, who appears to be a staff member of the Harriott II, jump off the riverboat and swim to the dock to defend Mr. Pickett as other Black bystanders join them on the deck. Several videos show one Black bystander, whom the police identified as Mr. Gray, hitting a white man with a folding chair.

Chief Albert said that in addition to Mr. Pickett, an unnamed 16-year-old white male, who took Mr. Pickett to the dock, was also attacked by the owners and operators of the pontoon. Mr. Pickett received treatment for injuries on Saturday night, but Chief Albert said he did not know of anyone else seeking medical care.

Mayor Steven L. Reed, Montgomery’s newly elected first Black mayor, said at the news conference that the attack did not characterize the Montgomery community at large, especially since the attackers were not from the city.

“It’s important for us to address this as an isolated incident, one that was avoidable and one that was brought on by individuals who chose the wrong path of action,” Mr. Reed said at the news conference. “This is not indicative of our community at all.”

An earlier version of this article, relying on information provided by the Montgomery Police Department, misspelled the given names of two people. The boat co-captain is Dameion Pickett, not Damien; and a person charged is Zachery Shipman, not Zachary.

How we handle corrections

Remy Tumin is a reporter for The Times covering breaking news and other topics. More about Remy Tumin

Chang Che is the Asia technology correspondent for The Times. He previously worked for The China Project and as a freelance writer covering Chinese technology and society. More about Chang Che

Montgomery police, mayor give update on Riverfront brawl

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WSFA) - The Montgomery Police Department held a press conference on Tuesday afternoon to give an update on the brawl that took place this past weekend at the Montgomery Riverfront.

Montgomery Police Chief Darryl Albert said the incident began when private boat owners would not move their boat from the place where the Harriot docks. Attempts were made by the Captain of the Harriot for 45 minutes by the use of a PA system. However, the private boat owners instead yelled obscenities back at the Harriot and refused to move their boat.

As a result, the co-Captain of the Harriot boarded a smaller vessel and went to the dock in an attempt to get the boat owners to move their boat in order to allow the Harriot to come to port. At this time, the boat owners continued a verbal confrontation that then turned violent.

Chief Albert stated that on the day of the incident, 13 people were detained, questioned, and then released. Chief Albert also stated that four arrest warrants have been issued for the individuals involved.

Richard Roberts, 48, is charged with two counts of assault third degree and is in custody, according to police. Allen Todd, 23, is charged with assault third degree, and Zachary Shipman, 25, is being charged with assault third degree.

Chief Albert said the other two individuals were expected to turn themselves in within hours after the press conference.

Police are also asking to speak with Reggie Gray, who was the individual in the video that was assaulting others with a chair, and that more charges are expected to be coming.

The incident was captured on video from multiple angles.

“We want to make sure that the community is aware that we are fully engaged, and we are doing all of our due diligence to find out exactly what took place,” Montgomery Mayor Steven Reed said Monday.

MPD investigators are combing through multiple videos provided by the public, as well as the City of Montgomery’s own video surveillance systems. They’re asking anyone with more footage to submit it to [email protected] .

MPD said the incident started shortly before 7 p.m. Saturday on the dock along the Alabama River. Units responded to the 200 block of Coosa Street regarding a disturbance. On scene, officers encountered a large group of people engaged in a physical altercation.

One video shared with WSFA 12 News by a viewer, which runs approximately four minutes and 30 seconds, shows the moments leading up to the confrontation and the initial scuffle that quickly escalated.

The viewer, narrating what she was watching while aboard the riverboat, said an unnamed person in a white shirt, whom she said was part of the boat’s crew, got off the riverboat and went to move a pontoon boat that was blocking the city-owned Harriott II’s ability to dock.

As the crewmember appears to untie the pontoon boat’s rope, a man runs up to confront him. While it’s unknown exactly what was being said between the two, body language clearly indicated an escalation before others also ran to the boat to confront the crewmember.

Approximately three minutes after the confrontation began, an unidentified man ran up and shoved the crewmember, at which point the physical altercation between multiple people began.

Other videos showed people being punched, shoved, kicked and at least one person was knocked off the pier and into the water.

A WSFA 12 News crew responded to the scene and found multiple police units who had placed several people in handcuffs. MPD said the unidentified people were detained and that charges were pending.

Reed released a statement Sunday afternoon:

“I feel like it’s an unfortunate incident,” the mayor said Monday. “It’s something that shouldn’t have happened, and it’s something that we’re investigating right now.”

The mayor further noted that, “we’ll come through this together as a community, collectively, as we have other situations, as well.”

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Copyright 2023 WSFA. All rights reserved.

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Montgomery brawl: Police charge 3 men with assault, adding that 'more charges are likely'

Police say one suspect is in custody and two others are expected to turn themselves in later tuesday..

Montgomery, Ala., police announced Tuesday that three men have been charged with assault and a fourth man is wanted for questioning following a massive weekend brawl involving more than a dozen people on the dock of the city’s Riverfront Park that appeared to be racially divided between Blacks and whites.

“This is not who we are as a city,” Police Chief Darryl Albert said at a press conference Tuesday afternoon . “The city of Montgomery is better than this. ... We are about having a good time and enjoying ourselves, so it was quite disturbing that we saw this happen.”

Richard Roberts, 48, was charged with two counts of third-degree assault, and Allen Todd, 23, and Zachary Shipman, 25, were each charged with one such count, Albert said. All three men, the chief said, are white and associated with a small pontoon boat that was docked in a space reserved for a commercial ship. Roberts is currently in custody, and the other two are expected to turn themselves in later Tuesday, according to police.

The charge of assault in the third degree is a Class A misdemeanor in the state of Alabama, punishable by a fine of up to $500, plus court costs, and up to 180 days in the city jail.

A fourth man, Reggie Gray, 42, who hit a woman in the head with a folding chair, is wanted for further questioning, police said. Gray, who is Black, is not associated with the small boat.

Albert added that a number of authorities, including the district attorney’s office and the FBI, are assisting in the case and that “more charges are likely.” Hate crime and riot charges were considered, he said, but officials determined that the situation did not meet the threshold for those charges.

The victims in the assaults were identified as Damien Pickett, the co-captain of the riverboat, and a 16-year white male, who is also not associated with the small boat.

“There was no need for this to take the path that it did,” Albert said.

What happened?

According to Albert, the fight on Saturday was initiated by the owner of a small pontoon boat, as he refused to remove his vessel from a dock space that was needed for the Harriott II Riverboat cruise ship. The ship, he said, takes hundreds of passengers at a time on two-hour tours of the city, and docks in the same space every day.

Multiple videos of the incident , which began to go viral Sunday on X (the social media platform formerly known as Twitter), show different angles and vantage points of the ordeal that apparently began as a verbal argument between Pickett and one of the pontoon passengers and escalated when another man lunged at Pickett and threw a punch.

Within seconds, at least four other white men joined in on beating Pickett while he was on the ground, video shows. Seconds later in the video, another Black man runs to the pileup, seemingly trying to deescalate the situation, which appears to work for a short time as the passengers of the vessel retreat to their small boat.

Meanwhile, a Black male employee from the riverboat dives into the water, footage shows , which was several yards from the dock, in an apparent attempt to help defend the dockworker.

As the riverboat docks, videos show several more boat employees and onlookers, who are all Black, approach the small vessel and a larger fight breaks out, which lasts several minutes. At least one woman was thrown into the water and two people were hit with chairs before police intervened and arrested several people, both Black and white. The 16-year-old white male who was assaulted worked with the riverboat company and had driven a smaller boat to the dock to deliver ship employees from the cruise ship.

At Tuesday’s presser, Montgomery Mayor Steven Reed called the brawl an “isolated incident,” adding that none of the passengers of the pontoon boat were residents of Montgomery.

“I think people will view this [incident] as the actions of a few individuals and not our entire community,” Reed, the city’s first Black mayor, said.

The significance of Montgomery in African American history

For many people who saw last weekend’s fight, the videos served as a blunt illustration of race relations in the U.S., both past and present, where white privilege has historically assumed dominance over Black bodily autonomy, from slavery to the civil rights era to today.

“You can't help but conclude that this was racially motivated, when you think about the history of Montgomery, Ala., — this was a huge slave-trading community,” civil rights attorney Areva Martin said on ABC News Live Tuesday. “What really caused such a visceral response from the Black community ... was this sense that these white men couldn’t believe this Black man had authority over him — had authority to tell them to move their boat.”

What’s not lost on critics is the significance of Montgomery in the African American story. Dating back to the early 1800s , the downtown part of the city became a hub for the domestic slave trade in the South, with tens of thousands of enslaved Africans brought to America through the same dock where the brawl broke out.

Between 1808 and 1860, the enslaved population of Alabama grew from less than 40,000 to more than 435,000, making Alabama the home of one of the largest slave populations in America by the start of the Civil War, according to the Montgomery-based human rights nonprofit Equal Justice Initiative (EJI).

“The forced migration of thousands of enslaved people from the Upper South to the Deep South in the 19th century is a phenomenon most people don’t understand,” Bryan Stevenson, executive director of the EJI, told the Montgomery Advertiser in 2013, adding, “You can’t understand civil rights or the Civil War without an appreciation of slavery and what the slave trade did to places like Montgomery.”

Today the EJI, which houses the National Lynching Memorial and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, just miles from the riverboat dock, stands as a stark reminder of the city’s complex past. The organization has documented over 4,400 lynchings of Black men, women and children across the U.S. between 1877 and 1950, 359 of them in Alabama — the fifth most of any state — almost exclusively at the hands of white supremacists.

Sixty years removed from the birth of the civil rights movement , where Montgomery played arguably the biggest role in fighting for Black voting rights and against white supremacy, for many Black Americans the brawl on Saturday offered insight into what a different kind of resistance looks like today.

“What happened in Alabama over the weekend didn’t start on that dock in Montgomery,” Keith Boykin, a New York Times bestselling author and political commentator, tweeted . “It was the cumulative impact of hundreds of years of racial oppression, bubbling back to the surface after yet another incident of white privilege disrespecting Black bodies.”

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Montgomery riverfront brawl captured on video, several detained by police

• Updated: Aug. 10, 2023, 1:30 p.m.
• | Published: Aug. 06, 2023, 12:06 a.m.
• Jeremy Gray | [email protected]

A brawl near the Montgomery Riverfront Park on Saturday evening was captured on video posted to social media by onlookers and ended with multiple people in police custody.

Montgomery police said they were called at about 7 p.m. to the 200 block of Coosa Street on a disturbance.

“At the scene, they located a large group of subjects engaged in a physical altercation. Several subjects have been detained and any charges are pending,” a police statement read.

#WATCH A brawl near Montgomery’s Riverfront Park has led to multiple arrests. @wsfa12news pic.twitter.com/PEbFynGhxb — Brady Talbert (@BradyTalbert) August 6, 2023

Police did not provide any additional information late Saturday night.

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See also: Many questions unanswered after fight caught on video

Multiple videos posted to social media suggest the brawl started when a pontoon boat stopped at the riverf ront, preventing a riverboat from docking there.

Witnesses said a riverboat worker was attacked by people onboard the pontoon boat. Efforts to confirm these accounts were not immediately successful.

If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

Black riverfront worker said he ‘hung on for dear life’ during Montgomery attack

In his written deposition to Montgomery police, filed hours after he was attacked at the city’s riverfront last weekend, dock worker Dameion Pickett said he “hung on for dear life” as he was pummeled by a group of white boaters who disregarded his requests to move their boat so a dinner cruise vessel could dock.

NBC News obtained the handwritten account Pickett filed with law enforcement after the Aug. 5 melee.

Pickett, who has yet to speak publicly about the incident and did not respond to a request for comment, detailed the moments leading up to the fracas, which was captured on video. In his statement, he recounts the battle between white disruptive boaters and the cadre of Black people who came to his aid.

Mary Todd, one woman who jumped into the melee, was taken into custody Thursday by the Montgomery Police Department and charged with third-degree assault. On Wednesday night, two of the three men initially charged in the altercation — Allen Todd, 23, and Zachary Shipman, 25 — turned themselves in to face third-degree assault charges. Richard Roberts, 48, was already in custody. They did not answer requests for comment about Pickett’s account of events. 

Pickett wrote that crew members asked the occupants of the pontoon boat, through an intercom, to move it “five or six times.” When Pickett left the cruise vessel, Harriott II, to confront the passengers of the smaller boat, he heard passengers shouting to the rowdy boaters to “move your boat. You’re in the way.”

The men on the pontoon responded by “giving us the finger” for about three minutes, Pickett wrote. 

Eventually, he and a dockhand untied the pontoon boat and moved it “three steps to the right” and tied it back to a post so the Harriott II could dock.

“By that time, two people ran up behind me,” Pickett wrote. One of the men, in a red hat, yelled to Pickett, “Don’t touch that boat motherf— or we will beat your ass.”

“I told them, ‘No, you won’t,’” he wrote. Pickett said they were unaware that he had given the captain the go-ahead to dock the Harriott II. The men continued to threaten Pickett, he said, and he told them: “Do what you’ve got to do, I’m just doing my job.”

One white man called another white man over to the scene. “They both were very drunk,” Pickett wrote. Another man came over to “try to calm them down” and then the boat’s owner came over. Pickett explained that the signs denoting where to park had been taken down by someone, so he had to tell them where to move the boat to make room for the Harriott II. 

The boat’s owner, wearing a gray shirt and red shorts with a sun visor, “started getting loud … He got into my face. ‘This belongs to the f— public.’ I told him this was a city dock.”

Soon, the melee began. “By that time,” Pickett wrote, “a tall, older white guy came over and hit me in the face. I took my hat off and threw it in the air. Somebody hit me from behind. I started choking the older guy in front of me so he couldn’t anymore, pushing him back at the same time.

“Then the guy in the red shorts came up and tackled me … I went to the ground. I think I hit one of them.”

He said the attackers littered him with threats as they ganged up on him. “I’m gonna kill you, motherf—--. Beat your ass, motherf—--.” 

“I can’t tell you how long it lasted,” Pickett wrote. “I grabbed one of them and just held on for dear life.”

Eventually, Pickett said he looked up and help had arrived. “Two people were pulling them off me.” He described the assistance as coming from a tall Black man and a security guard. After struggling to his feet, Pickett said he looked up and “one of my co-workers had jumped into the water and was pushing people and fighting.”

While being held by someone, Pickett asked to be released so he could dock the boat. He gave the necessary orders to the captain to park the vessel.

 Meanwhile, “my nose was running … and I could hear passengers and co-workers arguing with the people who attacked me.”

The Harriott II docked and when the ramp came down for passengers to disembark, Pickett’s nephew “ran off the boat and went after them. I was screaming for him to come back.”

The nephew did not come back and the encounter escalated. 

“The security guard was trying to get the lady in red to leave; she wouldn’t listen. People from off the boat and spectators were coming down the back end of the dock. The guy who started it all was choking my sister. I hit him, grabbed her and moved her … I turned around and MPD had a taser in my face. I told him I was the one being attacked and could I finish doing my job.”

The back of the cruise vessel had not been tied to the dock. Pickett, despite the chaos around him, helped passengers off the boat with the aid of police. He apologized to them “for the inconvenience. They all said I did nothing wrong,” he wrote. “Some of them were giving me cards with their names and numbers on it. Some said they had it all on film, so I pointed them out to MPD.”

At some point, Pickett said he was led to a medic, “where I sat for 25 or 30 minutes. My head was hurting. I felt a knot in the back of my head and the front.”

 With coaxing, he sought treatment in the emergency room, where he was shown to have bruised ribs and bumps on his head, but no broken bones.

Curtis Bunn is a reporter for NBC BLK.

WATCH: Massive Riverfront Brawl in Alabama Leads to Multiple Arrests

The fight in Montgomery, which reportedly broke out over dock space, ballooned to include men, women, and a guy wielding a folding chair.

AJ McDougall

Breaking News Reporter

Michael Barera/WikiCommons

A Saturday night melee along a river in Montgomery, Alabama that exploded after a group of white boaters reportedly challenged a Black riverboat worker has led to several arrests, according to authorities.

The Montgomery Police Department said that “several” people had been detained after the brawl broke out at Riverfront Park around 7 p.m. Police confirmed to WSFA on Sunday afternoon that there were four active warrants in the case, with more possibly to come as the department’s investigation continues.

Witnesses told the station and several other local outlets that the fight was sparked by a pontoon boat blocking a riverboat’s dock space. “That area is the regular spot reserved for the Harriott II Riverboat,” the Montgomery Advertiser reported.

In footage that circulated on social media in the aftermath of the tumult, a Black man can be seen standing on the dock, apparently attempting to unmoor the pontoon.

“Those guys who parked there were told not to leave it there and they left it there,” the woman filming, a guest on the riverboat cruise, can be heard saying. She identifies the man as a member of the cruise’s crew.

“So he’s just pushing it off,” the woman narrates. “That’s funny. Took matters into his own hands. I love it.” In the background of the video, other guests and crew members can be heard shouting in encouragement.

Several white men then approach the crew member, and an inaudible verbal confrontation begins, lasting several minutes.

As the men continue to argue, people on the boat can be heard yelling chants including, “Knock his ass out, Damien!” and “Get the fuck out the way!” The people aboard the riverboat then begin chanting the lyrics to “Move Bitch.”

Eventually, one of the men in the pontoon group shoves the crew member back. The crew member throws his hat away and the pair begin exchanging blows.

In another video, onlookers can be heard screaming, with one watching from the river yelling, “Y’all help that brother!” Several other people then rush in to join the fight, including a Black man who jumps into the water from a boat and swims to the dock.

The man in the water was identified by a family publicist on Sunday night only as a 16-year-old named Aaren. Calling him a “cherished young hero,” the publicist said in a statement posted to Facebook that Aaren “selflessly came to the rescue of a fellow colleague, showing courage beyond his years.”

According to a third video of the incident, the fight appears to momentarily deescalate soon after Aaren reaches the dock, only for it to scale up again, becoming a full-on brawl as the riverboat docks and roughly a dozen other employees go ashore.

Within moments, men and women, both Black and white, can be seen kicking, punching, eye-gouging, and wrestling each other. A person is at one point thrown into the water, while elsewhere a man finds a folding chair and starts bashing people over the head with it. Security officers can be seen attempting to break various sections of the fight up.

Law enforcement officers who arrived on the scene soon after handcuffed several people, including the man with the folding chair. The detained suspects’ names have not been released, and charges against those involved in the fight were pending on Sunday, according to the Montgomery Police Department.

In a Sunday afternoon statement, Montgomery Mayor Steven Reed said, “ Last night, the Montgomery Police Department acted swiftly to detain several reckless individuals for attacking a man who was doing his job. Warrants have been signed and justice will be served. This was an unfortunate incident which never should have occurred.”

Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast  here .

READ THIS LIST

Alabama boat fight video in full shows chair thrown in Montgomery riverfront brawl

Footage captured on the phones and cameras of dozens of spectators shows the fight in full in Montgomery riverfront, Alabama, which unfolded into a massive brawl including one fighter armed with a chair

• 14:35, 8 Aug 2023
• Updated 16:35, 8 Aug 2023

The full video of the shocking Alabama boat brawl has gradually been revealed as footage from dozens of witnesses from the riverfront has slowly found its way onto social media.

A number of people were arrested and even more arrest warrants issued in connection with the riverfront brawl in Montgomery, Alabama’s capital, that drew nationwide attention.

Major Saba Coleman, of the Montgomery Police Department ,said there are currently four active warrants and more could be issued after authorities review more footage. Police said Sunday that several people were detained and charges are pending.

Video circulating on social media showed a large melee Saturday that appeared to begin when a crew member of a city-operated riverboat, the historic Harriott II, a three-story dinner cruise boat, tried to get a pontoon boat moved that was blocking the mooring space. An argument erupted before a topless man swung at the worker and a fight began .

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The conflict escalated when several white people joined in on attacking the Black crew member. A separate video shows that several Black passengers then confronted the pontoon boat group after the riverboat docked, sparking another brawl that was largely split along racial lines.

One of the brawlers, a Black man, got his hands on a chair and was seen towards the end of the melee bringing it down ferociously on people's heads, including one woman who had already been knocked to the ground. Before the Harriott II had a chance to moor, a 16-year-old boy, dubbed 'Aquaman,' jumped off the boat and into the water so he could swim over and join the fight.

Makina Lashea, a representative for the boy’s family, issued a statement following the incident.

“In the face of adversity, Aaren selflessly came to the rescue of a fellow colleague, showcasing courage beyond his years,” Lashea said in the statement on Facebook .

“The overwhelming love and support pouring in from all corners of the state and surrounding areas have deeply touched Aaeren.”

Montgomery Mayor Steven Reed said police will hold a briefing Tuesday to provide an update on the situation.

“While there is a lot of activity and interest in this, we know that we’ll come through this together as a community collectively as we have other situations,” he told news outlets on Monday, according to al.com.

The mayor said in a statement Sunday that Montgomery police acted “swiftly to detain several reckless individuals for attacking a man who was doing his job.”

“This was an unfortunate incident which never should have occurred. As our police department investigates these intolerable actions, we should not become desensitised to violence of any kind in our community. Those who choose violence will be held accountable by our criminal justice system,” Mayor Reed said.

The fight took place along Montgomery’s downtown riverfront which the city has worked to develop into a tourist and recreation area with restaurants, bars and hotels.

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What we know about the Montgomery Riverfront brawl

A group of White boaters attacked a Black co-captain on Saturday on a dock at Riverfront Park in Montgomery, Ala., sparking a massive brawl that resulted in assault charges and the city’s mayor calling for justice to be served to the boaters “for attacking a man who was doing his job.”

Three White men were charged with misdemeanor assault over the brawl after 13 people were initially detained by police for interviews , Montgomery Police Chief Darryl J. Albert said at a news conference with Mayor Steven L. Reed (D) on Tuesday. Those charged were Richard Roberts, 48; Allen Todd, 23; and Zachery Shipman, 25. Several people were detained after video clips of the brawl went viral on social media over the weekend.

Reed said in a statement Sunday that police “acted swiftly to detain several reckless individuals for attacking a man who was doing his job.” He called the fight “an unfortunate incident which never should have occurred.”

Here’s what we know so far about the incident: