Hands Across Hawthorne was a rally held at the Hawthorne Bridge in Portland, Oregon, on May 29, 2011, in response to an attack on a gay male couple one week earlier for holding hands while walking across the bridge. According to the couple and the Portland Police Bureau, a group of five men followed Brad Forkner and Christopher Rosevear along the bridge before they were physically assaulted. The assault was condemned by Portland's gay mayor, Sam Adams, and its police chief, Mike Reese, and news of the attack spread throughout the Pacific Northwest and the United States. The attack prompted volunteers from the Q Center, a nonprofit organization that supports the LGBT community, to form street patrols as a means of monitoring Portland's downtown area.