The riverboat captain at the heart of the viral brawl in Montgomery, Alabama, has detailed his terrifying version of events.
Damien Pickett turned in his handwritten statement to authorities, in which he described the harrowing ordeal that had very devastating consequences for him, physically and mentally.
“I think I bit one of them, and I can hear them saying ‘I’m going to kill you, motherfucker,'” he said.
“I can’t tell you how long it lasted. I grabbed onto someone and held on for dear life.”
He continued: “I was holding on when they pulled him. I looked up, and two people were pulling them off, a tall gentleman and a security guard.”
Other eyewitnesses to the Montgomery River brawl also noted that the attackers were using the n-word and other racially charged profanities.
And the teenage deckhand who also witnessed the whole brawl was also injured in the attack, and was left shaken by it all.
“He has bruised ribs,’’ said the teen’s mother, Crystal Warren, per the Guardian. “He is really sore.”
The charges have now begun to be handed down.
Four white boaters have been charged with misdemeanor assault for their role in the brawl that injured the Montgomery riverboat captain, police said.
A fifth person has also been charged, but that charge is a minor offense of disorderly conduct.
The fifth person was a black man who was striking people with a folding chair and who went viral as a quasi-hero of sorts.
Steven Reed, the mayor of Montgomery, said that the investigation is still continuing and these charges are just the tip of the iceberg.
