The 42-year-old man seen wielding a folding chair in the viral melee on an Alabama riverfront has handed himself in almost a week after the wild brawl.
Reggie Ray was charged with disorderly conduct and was being housed in the municipal jail on Friday night, Montgomery police said.
In footage that was seen around the world, Ray appeared to swing at several members of a group of white boaters who had launched an unprovoked attack on Black riverboat co-captain Dameion Pickett.
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Montgomery police previously charged three men and one woman, all of whom are white, with third-degree assault after they jumped Pickett for “peacefully” asking them to move their pontoon boat out of the riverboat’s reserved dock. They were identified earlier this week as Richard Roberts, 48, Allen Todd, 23, Zachery Shipman, 25, and Mary Todd, 21.
The assault on Pickett enraged passengers and crew on the Harriott II riverboat so much that one 16-year-old worker jumped overboard and swam to the shore to aid his colleague. Others spilled off the ferry once it was finally able to dock, quickly turning the tables on Pickett’s attackers.
Ray’s weapon of choice turned him into an internet sensation, spawning countless folding chair memes. But police weren’t as impressed. Montgomery Police Chief Montgomery Police Chief Darryl Albert appealed on Tuesday for Ray to turn himself in for further questioning.
In his statement to police, obtained Friday by local outlet WSFA, Pickett said that, after the pontoon boat owners refused to move and flipped off the riverboat for more than 45 minutes, he headed ashore on a smaller boat to move the pontoon boat a few feet up. But one of the now-arrested men yelled, “If you touch my boat, I’m going to beat your ass,” he said.
As three men suddenly launched on him, Pickett claimed one of his assailants told him, “I’m going to kill you, motherfucker.”
While police said they didn’t find enough evidence to warrant hate-crime charges, the mother of a 16-year-old boy assaulted in the melee reportedly told cops that she heard one attacker tell “f**k that n***er” moments before the attack.
The Harriott II’s captain, Jim Kittrell, told The Daily Beast on Tuesday that he also believed Pickett was attacked because he’s Black.
“It makes no sense to have six people try to beat the snot out of you just because you moved their boat up a few feet,” Jim Kittrell said. “In my opinion, the attack on Damien was racially motivated.”
