Who thinks Freemasons suck?

“Masons assess damage after standoff

By Rebecca Nolan
The Register-Guard


Members of the Eugene Masonic Lodge are preparing to clean up the mess left by a man who trashed the 32-year-old building during a nearly four-hour standoff with Eugene police and the Metro SWAT team.

Broken glass, damaged furniture and Masonic artifacts littered the floor Monday at Lodge No. 11 on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. A gray dust covered nearly every surface, left there when Bruce Morrow discharged several fire extinguishers inside Saturday.

"I don't know if he was targeting Masonry or just `things,' " said Max Schumacher, former state grand master and now building agent at the lodge.

"He violated everything that we hold dear," he said.

The 175 members of the lodge can't begin the cleanup until an insurance adjuster assesses the damage at the building near Autzen Stadium. Schumacher expected that to happen today.

In the meantime, they cataloged the damage and said they were grateful about the things that weren't destroyed: wall-mounted photos of grand masters reaching back to the late 1800s, large glass display cases holding precious mementos, a photo album containing an image of the city's founder, Eugene Skinner, the first man initiated into the lodge when it was formed in 1856, three years before Oregon got its statehood.

"It could have been worse, it's true," Schumacher said. "I guess there's always a silver lining."

Morrow allegedly broke into the lodge Saturday afternoon and told police he was armed with a shotgun. During the more than three hours he kept police at bay, he smashed century-old furniture, burned an antique book, shredded the U.S. flag, urinated on the carpet and used a 2-by-4 to damage doors, walls and windows, Schumacher said.

Police used flash grenades and pepper spray to force Morrow out of the building.

He was arrested and jailed on burglary and criminal mischief charges, but he was released the next day because of jail overcrowding.”

“It's so boring being a Canuck. The most exciting thing to happen to our lodge was that it burned down to the ground and we couldn't get a building permit because it was too close to the river and the lot was too small.

Electrical fire, nothing criminal. Now we're renting a local hall. It's a 'dry' lodge, BTW, no booze because someone might have fun.”