Question 1

What is Montgomery’s Riverfront Park?

Accepted Answer

Riverfront Park is a popular summertime destination in Montgomery 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.

Question 2

How did the brawl begin?

Accepted Answer

At about 7 p.m. Saturday, the Montgomery Police Department responded to the 200 block of Coosa Street after a disturbance was reported, authorities said. At the news conference Tuesday, Albert said the argument between several White boaters and Damien Pickett began when a pontoon boat stopped at the riverfront and blocked the Harriott II Riverboat from docking there. After a roughly 45-minute effort to try to get the private pontoon boat to move — one met by obscene gestures from people on the pontoon, according to police — Pickett was transported to the dock himself, Albert said. Soon after, a White man attacked Pickett, who is the co-captain of the Harriott II Riverboat that was blocked from docking.

Question 3

What do the videos show?

Accepted Answer

In one video, as Pickett argues with one of the men with the pontoon boat, another White man charges at the co-captain and hits him in the face. After Pickett tosses his hat into the air, the fight escalates between him and the White boater who hit him, as shown in a clip shared by Josh Moon, a journalist with the Alabama Political Reporter. Seconds later, several other White men join the fray and begin hitting Pickett on the dock, according to video. The audio from the videos posted to social media captures sounds only from the witnesses on the riverboat, one of whom could be heard yelling, “Y’all help that brother!” Some people from the shore, White and Black, appeared to jump in to defend Pickett from the assault, in the video shared by Moon. At one point in Moon’s video, someone is seen jumping off the riverboat and swimming to the dock to help Pickett as the fight was winding down, cheered on by the patrons on the riverboat: “Get up there, young buck!” The person who jumped off the riverboat said they swam to the dock to help Pickett because that’s “what I was taught to do,” according to a statement from a family publicist who identified the person as 16-year-old Aaren. After the fight ended, multiple additional videos show a group of Black men confronting the White boaters who were on the dock. When that group 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. The videos soon went viral, viewed by millions on Twitter, now known as X. The brawl got the attention of New York Times journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, who noted the significance of the racial incident unfolding 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,” Hannah-Jones, who won a Pulitzer Prize for her work on “The 1619 Project,” which focused on the nation’s founding and the history of the slave trade, wrote on Twitter. Black people make up more than 60 percent of the city’s population, according to U.S. census data.

Question 4

Who was involved in the brawl?

Accepted Answer

Authorities said more charges could come. They said they want to question the Black man seen using a chair to hit a woman; he was identified as Reggie Gray, 42. Shipman of Selma, Ala., said on Facebook that he was one of the boaters involved in the melee, according to the Selma Times-Journal. But he denied on Sunday that he was facing charges in the incident. “Yes, I was there, but I was the first to try to get away,” Shipman wrote in the Facebook post that has since been made private, the Times-Journal said. “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 did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday. He has faced online backlash from critics, some of whom promised to leave negative reviews online to try to shut down his business.

Question 5

What’s next?

Accepted Answer

The Montgomery Police Department is encouraging anyone with additional video of the incident to email it to starcenter@montgomeryal.gov. Reed, the mayor, said in a statement Sunday that there will be accountability for a brawl that’s drawn 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.”

What we know about the Montgomery Riverfront brawl