ALABAMA, USA — The Alabama man attacked in Montgomery last weekend described how he "hung on for dear life" in his written deposition to city police as he was knocked to the ground by a group of white boaters.
NBC News obtained the handwritten account Pickett filed with law enforcement after the Aug. 5 brawl.
The deposition to Montgomery police was filed hours after dock worker Damien Picket, a Black man, was attacked at the city's riverfront last weekend by boaters who ignored his requests to move their boat so a dinner cruise vessel could dock.
Picket has yet to speak publicly about the incident, NBC News reports. In his deposition, the dock worker explained the moments leading up to the brawl, which was captured on video. Picket detailed the conflict between the white boaters and the Black people who came to help him.
According to Pickett, crew members asked the occupants of the pontoon boat to move it "five or six times." Pickett left on the cruise vessel Harriott II to confront the men on the pontoon boat. While doing so, he heard others shouting to the rowdy boaters to "move your boat." You're in the way."
Pickett wrote that the men on the pontoon responded by “giving us the finger."
NBC reports that Pickett and another dock worker untied the pontoon boat, moved it “three steps to the right,” and tied it back to a post so the Harriott II could dock.
Pickett's deposition recounts, “By that time, two people ran up behind me. One of the men, in a red hat, yelled to Pickett, “Don’t touch that boat motherf— or we will beat your ass.”
“I told them, ‘No, you won’t,’” he wrote. Pickett explained the boaters were unaware that he had given the captain the go-ahead to dock the Harriott II.
Continued threats from the men followed.
Pickett responded, “Do what you’ve got to do; I’m just doing my job.”
According to the deposition given to NBC, multiple white men came over to the scene. One man was there to "try to calm them down,” and the pontoon's owner came over.
Pickett informed the men that the signs explaining where to park the boat had been taken down, so he had to tell them verbally where to move the boat to make room for the Harriott II.
Then the pontoon's owner started getting loud … He got into my face. ‘This belongs to the f— public.’ I told him this was a city dock.”
After this confrontation, the brawl soon began, Pickett wrote. "By that time, a tall, older white guy came over and hit me in the face. I took my hat off and threw it in the air, he wrote. "Somebody hit me from behind. I started choking the older guy in front of me so he couldn’t anymore, pushing him back at the same time, Pickett said.
Pickett described how the pontoon's owner came up and tackled him to the ground. The dock worker said the boaters continued threatening and ganging up on him. “I’m gonna kill you, motherf—--. Beat your ass, motherf—--.”
“I can’t tell you how long it lasted,” Pickett wrote in his deposition. “I grabbed one of them and just held on for dear life.”
Pickett said help arrived eventually. He described a tall Black man and a security guard assisting him. Right after struggling to his feet, Pickett said one of his coworkers jumped into the water, pushing people and fighting.
Pickett, who someone was holding, asked to be released so he could dock the boat.
Meanwhile, the dock worker described how he could hear passengers and coworkers arguing with the people who had attacked him.
Once the Harriott II docked, Pickett's said his nephew ran off the boat and went after the boaters who attacked him. "I was screaming for him to come back," Pickett said.
The nephew ignored Pickett, and the encounter escalated.
The following was detailed in his deposition.
“The security guard was trying to get the lady in red to leave; she wouldn’t listen. People from off the boat and spectators were coming down the back end of the dock. The guy who started it all was choking my sister. I hit him, grabbed her and moved her … I turned around and MPD had a taser in my face. I told him I was the one being attacked and could I finish doing my job.”
Despite the brawl around him, Pickett helped passengers off the cruise vessel with the help of police. He apologized to them “for the inconvenience. They all said I did nothing wrong,” he wrote. “Some of them were giving me cards with their names and numbers on it. Some said they had it all on film, so I pointed them out to MPD.”
Afterward, Pickett was led to a medic. He soon sought treatment in the emergency room. As a result of the brawl, Pickett obtained bruised ribs and bumps on his head but no broken bones.
The one woman who jumped into the brawl, Mary Todd, was taken into custody Thursday by the Montgomery Police Department and charged with third-degree assault. Two of the three men initially charged in the altercation — Allen Todd, 23, and Zachary Shipman, 25 — turned themselves in to face third-degree assault charges Wednesday night. Richard Roberts, 48, was already in custody. They did not answer requests for comment about Pickett’s account of events.