Two people involved in an Alabama riverfront brawl in August pleaded guilty in court on Friday.
Mary Todd, 21, pleaded guilty to harassment and was ordered to complete anger management classes, while Richard Roberts, 48, pleaded guilty to two assault charges, according to WBRC. He received a four-month suspended sentence, which he was ordered to serve on weekends beginning November 4 and complete 100 hours of community service.
Both defendants were also ordered to pay court costs.
The cases against the other three defendants — Allen Todd, 24; Zachary Shipman, 26; and Reggie Ray, 42 — were postponed until November 16.
This video shows how the whole Alabama ferry brawl started.
Brother man was doing his job telling these folks to move their boat so the ferry could dock.
Privileged ass white people refused to move and then jumped him pic.twitter.com/6fPnjBDGsH
— chris evans (@notcapnamerica) August 6, 2023
The brawl gained national attention when video of it went viral, NBC News reported. It was sparked when a pontoon boat docked in a spot blocking the riverboat Harriot II’s egress point as the riverboat was returning from its evening cruise on the Alabama River in Montgomery.
The captain tried to get the pontoon boat operators to move, but they would not. After about 45 minutes, the captain sent his co-captain and deck hand to the dock to convince the boat owners to move it.
The co-captain, who was Black, and the deckhand, who was white, untied the pontoon boat to move it and were then confronted by the white boat owners. A brawl broke out, which periodically subsided only to swell again, fueled now by passengers and bystanders. Police arrived and took 13 people in for questioning, ultimately charging five as videos of the event spread across the internet and even became popular memes.
The Todds, Shipman, and Roberts are all white. Ray, the only Black person charged, was allegedly seen on video hitting a woman, identified as Roberts’ wife, with a folding chair. She chose not to press charges, but Montgomery Police charged him anyway.
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[Featured image: Mary Todd and Richard Roberts/Montgomery Police Department]
