A woman involved in a viral brawl on an Alabama boat dock has been sentenced to anger management classes after pleading guilty to harassment.
Mary Todd, 21, entered a guilty plea as part of a prearranged plea agreement, and has 90 days to complete the program while also facing costs from her court case.
She was among five people involved in the August melee to face charges, alongside Allen Todd, 24; Reggie Ray, 42; Richard Roberts, 48; and Zachary Shipman, 26.
Todd, Ray and Shipman had their cases continued on Friday, while Roberts is still waiting for his case to be heard.
Todd and Shipman are facing one count of third-degree assault, while Roberts has been charged with two counts of third-degree assault, and Ray is facing a charge of disorderly conduct.
Mary Todd, 21, was sentenced to anger management classes on Friday
Zachary Shipman, 26, turned herself in last month along with his girlfriend Todd, but had his case continued on Friday
Allen Todd and Richard Roberts were also charged
Reggie Ray is facing disorderly conduct charges in the case
In September, the four white boaters pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor assault charges, after police said they were filmed hitting or shoving a Black riverboat captain that triggered the fighting.
The manic brawl was widely circulated after multiple pieces of shocking footage were shared by stunned onlookers.
Many remarked that the fighting appeared to be racially motivated, with members of either side dividing along racial lines and subsequently blaming the other for the outburst in the aftermath.
Ray, who was seen in footage violently swinging a folding chair into a woman and striking several people in the subsequent melee, previously pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct charges.
The moment he used the chair became part of a wider mania over the viral video, which spawned numerous memes, parodies and even merchandise.
Millions of viewers chimed in on the fighting after it found internet fame, with Richard White, a lawyer representing one of the white boaters, telling WSFA that he is fighting to ensure his client is treated fairly given the national attention.
Four of the people who have been charged so far are shown sitting on the dock in handcuffs
A woman at the Alabama riverfront brawl says she heard a white attacker say ‘F**k that n*****’ to the black deckhand at the center of the shocking incident
The brawl was ignited when the owner of a pontoon boat refused to move from a docking spot designated for the city-owned Harriott II riverboat, Montgomery Police Chief Darryl Albert told reporters in August.
This led the riverboat captain to take a smaller vessell to the shore to move the pontoon boat himself, in order to let the approximately 200 people on board to disembark.
The move appeared to send members of both parties into a frenzy, with footage showing they appeared to separate largely along racial lines.
Several white men punched or shoved the Black riverboat co-captain after he took the separate vessel to shore, which led a black teenage boat crew member to rush to the co-captain’s defense after swimming to shore.
Jim Kittrell, the captain of Harriott II, told The Daily Beast that he thought race might have been a factor in the initial attack on his co-captain, but the resulting melee was not a ‘Black and white thing.’
‘This was our crew upset about these idiots,’ Kittrell also told WACV radio station, later adding that they ‘felt they had to retaliate, which was unfortunate.’
‘I wish we could have stopped it from happening but, when you see something like that, it was difficult. It was difficult for me to sit there in the wheelhouse watching him being attacked,’ Kittrell told the station.
Despite some alleging that race may have been a factor, Major Saba Coleman of the Montgomery Police Department said in August that hate crime charges were ruled out after the department consulted with the local FBI.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk
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