Posted on 08/30/2012 7:01:17 AM PDT by marktwain
PORTLAND, Ore. Portland police shut down the Burnside Bridge and detained 13 bearded men who said they were headed to a photo shoot to raise money for breast cancer research Wednesday evening.
According to spokesman Robert King, police received a report that a man on the bridge had an assault rifle. Officers shut down the bridge just after 7:30 p.m. while they investigated.
Police found 13 bearded men, many of whom wore military style uniforms. One of the men had an assault rifle, King said. They were taken to the Central Precinct.
It's unclear if the assault rifle was loaded.
Several of the men told KATU News they were on their way to take a photo under the "Portland, Oregon" sign near the Burnside Bridge to raise money for breast cancer research. The men said the photo was going to be part of a Beards for Breasts calendar.
"It's from Seattle," said Jedediah Aacker. "This girl, Sugar June, does it. She puts together a calendar for all the beard clubs around the nation. Beards for breasts."
Someone called police when they saw one of the men holding a rifle on the bridge.
"We were wearing camo gear and stuff walking up to do the shoot and sure enough police show up, boom, arrested us," said Aacker.
"We were just a bunch of dudes walking across the bridge wearing camo getting rad."
King said two of the men were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct for handling the rifle. It's unclear if any of the other men were charged with a crime.
The men told KATU there were 10 of them. Police said 13 were detained.
The bridge was opened at around 8:15.
"We didn't mean to shake up the community or shut down the Burnside Bridge," said Matthew Jenkins. "Just trying to save boobs, you know?"
Again, the checking part isn’t the problem, it’s the arresting them part and the disorderly conduct charge for exercising their 2A rights part that are the problems.
Perhaps so, but only one man was carrying a rifle.
Bingo!
True, but an arrest based on no violation of law, but on the fears of a hoplophobe should be costly to the individual police officers.
The boobs came out of the woodwork on this one.
If things go wrong in November, it may well become one!
Like I said watch for false flags.
Me too; I couldn’t envision what was happening and thought the bearded guys must be reenactors getting ready for the “Maryland My Maryland” event in a few weeks.
The worse I experienced was a "good luck" and a wave of a hand.
If nothing else, this should get more donations for breast cancer and the calendar will see like hotcakes.
That being said, the police were probably not thinking in terms of deliberately depriving them of their rights but were probably thinking of the "optics" if something went wrong.
Hopefully this turns out to be a teachable moment for the police here.
What would a good cop have done?
Asked them where they were going.
Probably found out that it was very near, since they were on foot and not in vehicles.
Decided that their mission was a good idea and offered to have a car follow behind them so as to prevent more stupid 911 panic calls and as their own contribution to the good cause.
And it would have tied up only one cop and one car rather than the large number of cops it takes to haul in and process 13 people.
The cops used terrible judgement.
” over, say, 50 or 60,”
61...and feeling every day of it. :-)
There’s a lot of bearded men in Vermont. Usually there are two explanations:
1) They’re hippies.
2) They are sensibly shielding their faces against the winter cold.
It used to be legal to open carry in California. Then after a few people decided to push it, it was made illegal. Open carry makes the sheep nervous.
LOL!!!!!!! Has she had work done on her face??? Can you put side by side pics.....something is totally different.
I suspect this story involves booze more than boobs. That’s probably where the disorderly charges originated.
He might have had one. Class III is legal in Oregon and most sheriffs readily sign off on the forms.
ed
Ditto that ... and I was wondering how the heck it got to Portland.
I doubt if they were drunk.
Portland police are notoriously anti-gun. The rest of the state’s pretty conservative, once you get outside the big cities and university towns.
Ed
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.