At least three sailors assigned to the aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower were charged with misdemeanors for their roles in a brawl that broke out during a command holiday party at an upscale downtown Norfolk hotel in mid-December.
Aviation Ordnanceman 3rd Class Demetrius Jackson, 23, of Texas, was arrested for allegedly obstructing justice and disorderly conduct on Dec. 17, according to online court records.
He was released on his own recognizance and also received a summons for being drunk in public.
Norfolk police officers that night also arrested Boatswain’s Mate Seaman Akilah Carradine-McMillan, 22, of Louisiana, on a charge of disorderly conduct. She also was released on her own recognizance.
A third sailor, Electronics Technician 3rd Class Ryann Moore, 20, of Michigan, was initially charged with disorderly conduct but that was amended to drunk in public, online court records show.
Like the others she was released on her own recognizance. She was found guilty of the charge on Jan. 8.
Moore enlisted in the Navy in 2017. She reported to the Ike in Sept. 2018, with short stints away for school.
She returned to the carrier in March, according to a Navy biography.
Video of the fight, which appeared to erupt in the lobby of the Norfolk Waterside Marriott, surfaced online and has been viewed thousands of times.
It shows a chaotic two-and-a-half minutes during which several people appear involved, either through trying to break up the brawl or while attacking others.
At one point, it appears a chair is thrown and a man is shown grabbing a woman and yelling what sounds like “sit down,” while others are overheard saying “Go outside,” "I love it” and “It’s not worth it.”
A Norfolk Police incident report obtained by Navy Times offered few additional details about the fight.
The officer wrote that he observed a fight in the making and escorted one man out of the building, only to then return inside and find another fight underway.
As friends of those involved tried to break up the fight, Carradine-McMillan approached a woman who was being held back by a man and then hit him, before shoving a plain-clothes detective who tried to intervene, according to the report.
“She failed to comply and disregarded every command of stop resisting as she was trying to break free from our control,” the officer wrote.
Carradine-McMillan has a court hearing scheduled for March 4 in Norfolk General District Court, according to online records. According to a Navy biography, she enlisted in late 2017 and has been assigned to the Ike since March 2018.
Jackson has a court hearing scheduled Jan. 24. He enlisted in the Navy in 2015 and has been assigned to Ike since Sept. 2018.
RELATED
Cmdr. Jennifer Cragg, a spokesperson for Naval Air Force Atlantic, said the incident remains under investigation and that no sailors have faced disciplinary actions.
About 1,500 sailors and guests attended the party, she added.
“It would be inappropriate to speculate the final outcome,” Cragg wrote in an email to Navy Times. “In terms of accountability, all administrative and or disciplinary options will be considered, as appropriate, once the investigation is complete.”
Each of the three sailors declined to comment through a Navy public affairs officer.
Norfolk Police spokeswoman Officer Joy Lipieko said she was unaware of other arrests tied to the incident.
“All other details are still considered investigative in nature and are unable to be disclosed,” she said in an email to Navy Times.
Courtney Mabeus-Brown is the senior reporter at Air Force Times. She is an award-winning journalist who previously covered the military for Navy Times and The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Va., where she first set foot on an aircraft carrier. Her work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Foreign Policy and more.
