What is Montgomery’s Riverfront Park?

Riverfront Park is a popular summertime destination in Montgomery that is on the banks of the Alabama River. The entertainment site features an amphitheater, a stadium, a park and the Union Station Train Shed, a National Historic Landmark since 1976. Riverfront Park also features the Harriott II Riverboat, a 19th-century riverboat that offers dinner, dancing and live entertainment, according to the city’s website .

How did the brawl begin?

At about 7 p.m. on Saturday, the Montgomery Police Department responded to the 200 block of Coosa Street after a disturbance was reported, Coleman told The Washington Post. When police arrived, “they located a large group of subjects engaged in a physical altercation,” Coleman said. While authorities have not confirmed the motive behind the fight, several videos posted to social media suggest that an argument between several White boaters and a Black employee began when a pontoon boat had stopped at the riverfront and blocked the Harriott II Riverboat from docking there. A witness posted a video to Facebook saying that White men aboard the pontoon boat had attacked a Black man. The Black man, who has not been publicly identified, is a dock worker at Riverfront Park, according to WSFA , an NBC affiliate in Montgomery.

What do the videos show?

As the Black employee was arguing with one of the men with the pontoon boat, another shirtless White man charges at the employee and hits him in the face. After the employee tosses his hat in the air, the fight escalates between he and the shirtless White boater, according to a clip shared by Josh Moon, a journalist with the Alabama Political Reporter. Seconds later, several other White shirtless men join the fray and begin hitting the Black man as he’s on the dock, according to video. The audio from the videos posted to social media are only from the witnesses on the riverboat, one of whom could be heard yelling, “Y’all help that brother!” Some people from the shore, both White and Black, appeared to jump in to defend the Black man from the assault. At one point in the video, someone is seen jumping off the riverboat and swimming to the dock to help the employee as the fight was winding down, much to the delight of the patrons on the riverboat: “Get up there, young buck!” The person who jumped off the riverboat, only identified as a 16-year-old named Aaren, said they swam to the dock to help the Black man because that’s “what I was taught to do,” according to a statement from a family publicist. As the initial incident had concluded, separate videos show a group of shirtless Black men confronting the White boaters who were on the pontoon boat on the dock. When they approached the boat, more fighting broke out between White and Black people on the dock. The brawl lasted for more than a minute, with at least one person getting punched off the dock and into the water. One of the Black men in the fight was seen hitting a White woman in the head with a folding chair. Police officers eventually showed up to break up the second melee, which was largely divided along racial lines. The videos soon went viral, being viewed by millions on Twitter, now known as X. The brawl got the attention of Nikole Hannah-Jones, who noted what it meant for the incident along racial lines to unfold in Montgomery. “If you understand the history of Montgomery — one of the most prolific slave-trading cities in the U.S. turned brutally repressive apartheid regime after, and majority Black but JUST got its first Black mayor — it gives so much more perspective to this video,” wrote Hannah-Jones, a New York Times Magazine journalist who won a Pulitzer Prize for her work on “The 1619 Project.”

Who was involved in the brawl?

Authorities have yet to release the names of those involved as of Monday afternoon. Chase Shipman, 25, of Selma, Ala., admitted on Facebook to being one of the boaters involved in the melee. “Yes, I was there but I was the first to try to get away,” Shipman wrote in a post that has since been made private, according to the Selma Times-Journal . “You can see in the video I attached, and I do not condone what happened. I tried to stop it and realized that I could not, so I tried to get away. There is a video of me being the first to run away because what was happening was wrong and I did not want to be a part of it.” Shipman, who is the owner of Vasser’s Mini-Mart in Selma, added, “I realize I have a business to run and represent and no charges were filed against me because I was not involved.” Shipman, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday, has faced online backlash from critics saying they would not “support any business owner or business in Selma who engages in physical violence,” according to the Times-Journal.

More updates to the case are expected Tuesday, but it’s unclear whether police will release the names and charges of those involved. The Montgomery Police Department is encouraging anyone with additional video of the incident to email it to starcenter@montgomeryal.gov. One official with the mayor’s office mentioned Montgomery’s current political climate to The Post, noting that the incident unfolded a day after former president Donald Trump spoke at a GOP fundraiser in the city. Black people make up more than 60 percent of the city’s population, according to U.S. census data . Reed, the mayor, said in a Sunday statement to reporters that there will be accountability for a brawl that’s gotten nationwide attention. “Justice will be served,” he said. “As our police department investigates these intolerable actions, we should not become desensitized to violence of any kind in our community. Those who choose violent actions will be held accountable by our criminal justice system.” Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff contributed to this report.

Monday, August 07, 2023

What caused the Montgomery, Alabama, Riverfront brawl - The Washington Post

What we know about the Montgomery Riverfront brawl

By Timothy Bella

Updated August 7, 2023 at 5:15 p.m. EDT|Published August 7, 2023 at 12:16 p.m. EDT

A brawl broke out between White and Black people at Riverfront Park in Montgomery, Ala., on Saturday, police said. Four arrest warrants have been issued in an incident that was captured on video. (Josh Moon via Facebook)

7 min

A fight that began between a group of White boaters and a Black employee on Saturday on a dock at Riverfront Park in Montgomery, Ala., escalated into a massive brawl that resulted in multiple arrests and the city’s mayor calling for justice to be served to the boaters “for attacking a man who was doing his job.”

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Several people were detained and charges are pending after video clips of the brawl went viral on social media over the weekend, Maj. Saba Coleman of the Montgomery police said Monday. “There are four active warrants at this time and there’s a possibility more will follow after the review of additional video,” Coleman said. More updates are expected Tuesday afternoon, when Montgomery Police Chief Darryl J. Albert and Mayor Steven L. Reed (D) will hold a news conference at the riverfront. The suspects had not been publicly identified as of Monday afternoon, and the conditions of those involved and whether anyone was still in custody remains unclear.

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.”

There are still many unanswered questions about a brawl with combatants that appeared to be split along racial lines. Here’s what we know so far about the incident:

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Monday, August 07, 2023

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What we know about the Montgomery Riverfront brawl

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Monday, August 07, 2023

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What we know about the Montgomery Riverfront brawl

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