Here’s what you need to know about the Montgomery, Alabama, riverfront brawl

• Fights broke out Saturday in Montgomery after a group of white people punched a Black dock worker.
• Several people were detained as a result, police told Insider. 
• The incident sparked a boatload of memes across social media.

The internet is ablaze after a Saturday brawl in Montgomery, Alabama, that began after an unnamed Black worker asked a group of white people to move their pontoon boat to make way for a large riverboat trying to dock, according to multiple reports and videos of the incident.

Where did the incident occur?

The incident occurred near Montgomery Riverfront Park on the 200 block of Coosa Street, the Montgomery Police Department told Insider. 

What do we know so far about what began the fight?

Most information about the events that led up to the larger brawl, which included dozens of people, has been pieced together with bystander footage.

Videos online show that while the Black worker is speaking to the group, apparently asking them to move their boat per onlookers narrating the situation, one of them runs toward him and swings. The initial swing makes contact, the video shows. The worker then throws up his hat and begins fighting back until more people arrive to aid the white man and begin attacking, videos show.

In the clips, onlookers can be heard shouting requests to help the dock worker. Suddenly, other people can be seen running toward the white group. One worker, later identified as a 16-year-old boy named Aaren, who is now being called a hero, even swims across the Alabama River to help the man.

The riverboat eventually docks, a group of people rushes toward the pontoon, and additional fights erupt. One person can be seen using a white folding chair against a few people.

Has anyone been arrested yet? 

The city's mayor, Steven Reed, told reporters on Monday that although people have been detained, no arrests have been made. There are currently four active warrants as of Monday, and more may follow after authorities review additional video footage of the incident, per the police spokesperson. 

Police eventually make their way to the scene on Saturday and begin handcuffing individuals, the videos show. MPD told Insider they responded around 7 p.m. local time.

"At the scene, they located a large group of subjects engaged in a physical altercation. Several subjects have been detained and charges are pending," a spokesperson for the Montgomery Police Department told Insider in a statement. 

Reed also released a statement saying the police "acted swiftly to detain several reckless individuals for attacking a man who was doing his job."

 

What is the internet's reaction to all this?

Although the brawl is over, it lives on as the stuff of internet legend. Users, many on the side of the dock worker and the people who came to defend him are posting memes about all the various characters in the videos, portraying them as superheroes and lionizing the star of the show: the white chair. 

 

 

Some people are even posing to take photos with the chair and requesting that it be preserved in a museum. 

 

 

Reenactments have also surfaced as internet users post their artistic takes on the punch that set off the brawl. 

 

 

Users set clips of the brawl to the Jason Aldean song "Try That in a Small Town," turning the tables on a tune critics saw as a racist dog whistle aimed at Black Americans.

 

 

When will the police give another update on the brawl?

The MPD spokesperson told Insider that Chief of Police Darryl J. Albert and Reed will provide an update during a press conference Tuesday at 1 p.m. Central Time.