The beard club, in happier times. Credit: via KATU

A photoshoot of bearded men on the Burnside Bridge this evening took an hairy turn when one of the men turned up with an unexpected prop: A gun.

The photoshoot for the Beards for Breasts fundraiser calendar was supposed to take a shot of a bunch of dudes with beards underneath the “Portland, Oregon” sign. One guy also showed up with an actual assault rifle.

Rather swiftly, police responded to reports of a man with a rifle on the Burnside Bridge and shut the Burnside down.

“I heard over this megaphone, ‘GET DOWN!’ There were a bunch of cops with guns pointed at us. It was so ironic that like literally a SWAT team shows up to our breast cancer fundraiser. It was a scary experience,” says a bearded dude who was in the shoot and asked that his name not be used. He had no idea why someone decided to bring a rifle to the photo shoot. “That was a dumb idea.”

The police yelled at the group to get on the ground and then handcuffed everyone and took them all the Central Precinct. The police detained at least 13 bearded men in the incident, reports KATU, though (very) luckily no one was injured. The police reopened the bridge after 45 minutes.

While it’s legal to carry a gun in public in Oregon, Portland has a ban on carrying loaded weapons in any public place. It’s not clear whether this guy’s gun was loaded.

Let this be a lesson: Never bring a gun to a downtown photoshoot.

The beard club, in happier times.
  • via KATU
  • The beard club, upon release from jail.

UPDATE 8/30, 4:30PM— Police released the info that this incident led to two arrests. A 29-year-old bearded guy was booked for unlawful possession of a firearm and a 35-year-old was charged with disorderly conduct.

Sarah Shay Mirk reported on transportation, sex and gender issues, and politics at the Mercury from 2008-2013. They have gone on to make many things, including countless comics and several books.

19 replies on ““Beards for Breasts” Photoshoot Leads to Standoff on Burnside Bridge”

  2. Typical cop overreaction. Did they not see the cameras? I’m surprised the actors weren’t all murdered.

    I wonder how the Grimm people get away with it.

  3. So instead of, gee, i don’t fucking know – maybe TALKING with whom ever was in charge… the Portland Gestapo response to an otherwise harmless photo shoot was a locked and load SWAT force pointing their fucking guns at everyone in sight?! Yeah, clearly these pigs have not learned a damned thing! And no mention in this article on whether or not the alleged gun – which was clearly a prop – had even been loaded.

    Who even still says we DON’T live in an occupied gestapo police-state is a fucking rube!

    And the dipshit who NARC’d on this shoot can go jump off that very bridge! Fucking snitch!!!

  4. No, the person who brought the assault rifle and the other people who didn’t stop him from waiving it around on the bridge are the idiots here. Sorting out why some idiots are waiving assault rifles on a bridge is what cops are for, and what kind of explanation is, “oh, it’s for a beards for breasts fundraiser?”

    “It was so ironic that like literally a SWAT team shows up to our breast cancer fundraiser,” said the idiot who apparently grasps neither irony nor common sense.

  6. “Beards for Breasts”?

    See, people think it’s all fun and games, but as this episode shows, when amateurs do marketing things can turn deadly.

  7. Are you kidding me? It’s not police overreaction: IT’S A GUY WALKING AROUND WITH A FUCKING ASSAULT RIFFLE.

    Congrats on wasting far more money than you’re going to collect. Charity!

  9. Very nearly the winner of this year’s Darwin Award.

    And another reason why there should be an IQ test required for owning a gun.

    (BTW, Todd up top for comment of the decade)

  11. I THINK THE POLICE RESPONSE WAS ENTIRELY APPROPRIATE, HOWEVER… ACTUALLY CHARGING THEM WITH A BULLSHIT CHARGE IN ORDER TO JUSTIFY THE SERT UNIT BEING DEPLOYED? FUCK THAT.

  12. mmmmmmm. the difference between Grimm and this may be that Grimm has a complete camera crew with lights and trucks and stuff…..not 13 guys with an assault rifle walking on a bridge at night….

  13. …And the people who make television shows tend to get their permits in order months in advance. Yeah, our beardy friends were the idiots on this one, and if I was feeling a little more energetic, I’d go find the video for “The Bearded Men of Space Station Eleven” sketch from ‘The State,’ and put a link here.

  16. If you listen to the 911 call, it’s very evident that what those guys were doing would have easily been mistaken as a couple of lunatics headed downtown to do a mass killing. If they were professionals working on a PR campaign of any kind they would have had a permit for the shoot (assuming it was going to be on public property), and the police would have been notified well in advance. Something like this probably would have required at least one officer to be on site as well, just to keep the public informed. These guys were not very bright, even if they were working for a good cause.

  17. Anyone click on the link, that website was last updated last November when they needed a few hundred more to make 5000. One more question, did they have sideburns too? Or names?

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