Just before 10am, the Portland police responded to Waterfront Park based on a call that a man underneath the Hawthorne Bridge was armed with a handgun.

According to the police, “Officers arrived in the area and attempted to make contact with the man but the he ran from the officers and barricaded himself in a bathroom directly under the West end of the Hawthorne Bridge. A handgun fell out of the man’s pocket as he ran from officers.”

The area around the bathroom and the westbound traffic lane on the Hawthorne Bridge are shut down as “officers are loud hailing the man to come out.”

This bears a scary similarity to last year’s incident with Jack Dale Collins, in which a homeless man with a knife holed up in a Washington Park bathroom. A police officer responded and when Collins emerged from the bathroom, covered in blood and moving forward, the officer shot him.

Let’s hope this interaction ends more peacefully.

UPDATE 11:28AM: Alex Z. is down on the scene and reports that the gun was a pellet gun not a handgun, so the problem isn’t very serious. The police say their plan now is to walk away and let him come out on his own.

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.

8 replies on “BREAKING: Man Barricaded in Waterfront Bathroom”

  2. That bathroom haunts my dreams. The one and only time I was desperate enough to use it, there was a neat little pile of human shit in the corner. I should have just wet my pants.

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