One of the white men connected to the Montgomery, Alabama, brawl that has gone viral on social media suffered an onslaught of backlash for his participation.
Chase Shipman reportedly deleted his personal and business Facebook page after word spread online that he was in the video circulating of a white mob attacking a Black dock worker.
Online users started flooding the Facebook page for Vasser’s Mini Mart, located about 50 miles from Montgomery in Selma, with 1-star reviews. Other users captured screenshots of the reviews and shared them on social media even after Shipman deactivated his accounts.
“They are distasteful. The son is the culprit but he learned from his elders. Who is the father & the grandfather. Somewhere in there there runs alot of racism & hate for black people,” one review said in part.
“Highly don’t recommend. Ask the cashier for a fork for my beef tip & rice, they jumped me,” another review said.
The viral video shows a white man violently attacking a Black dock worker for a riverboat cruise before several more white people joined in, causing the Black man to fall to the ground.
Amid the chaos, another Black man rushed to the worker’s aid, attempting to break up the fight before swarms of other Black people debarked the cruise and started retaliating against the mob also standing up for the victim.
In a post captured on Twitter from Vasser’s Mini Mart Facebook page, Shipman admits that he is in the video but argues that he didn’t condone the attack. The convenience store was also flooded with bad reviews on Yelp.com.
“I tried to stop it and realized that I could not, so I tried to get away. There is a video of me being the first to run away because what was happening was wrong and I did not want to be a part of it,” the post says. “I realize I have a business to run and represent and no charges were filed against me because I was not involved. I know it was wrong and it should have never happened.”
