James Hoffman, the owner of Momentum Tattoo in Camas, and an employee, Billy Beadle, were arrested and booked at the Clark County Jail following a Wednesday shooting at the tattoo parlor. Police say the shooting was deliberately staged by the pair as part of a club initiation. (Jessica Prokop/The Columbian)Photo Gallery
To have a shot at this club, members need to have survived a gunshot. So, Camas police say, a local tattoo parlor owner arranged to have one of his employees graze him with a bullet.
Police say they don’t know any more about the alleged club other than it is apparently based on the Internet. But they do know that they’ve arrested the owner of Momentum Tattoo and one of his employees for staging the shooting.
Billy Joe Beadle, 34, of Camas shot James Hoffman, 38, of Battle Ground, police say, but it wasn’t initially reported that way.
Instead, when police were called to the tattoo parlor at 106 S.E. Weir St. at 5:40 p.m. Wednesday, they were told that a “short, dark-skinned male” had come into the shop several hours earlier and fired three rounds from a handgun at Hoffman. Hoffman showed police where a bullet grazed him on his left side, above his hip, but didn’t break the skin. Hoffman did not seek medical attention, police said.
With the report of a gunman on the loose, every available Camas police officer, the Camas detective squad and the Clark County Sheriff’s major crimes team were summoned to the scene, where they canvassed the neighborhood and launched a two-day investigation.
They became suspicious after interviewing all of the involved parties, according to the news release. Detectives obtained a search warrant and seized a handgun that was believed to have been used to shoot Hoffman.
“Over the years, we have had similar goofy stories, but I can’t give any examples off the top of my head,” Camas police spokeswoman Officer Debrah Riedl said. “But, this is unusual by any means.”
Hoffman and Beadle were arrested and booked at the Clark County Jail on allegations of reckless endangerment, aiming/discharging a firearm, false reporting and obstructing a public officer. They’ve since been released, but charges are pending in Camas-Washougal Municipal Court.
Neither man has had serious run-ins with Camas police, Riedl said, and people who know them have reportedly said they are “pretty reputable” individuals, she added. There also haven’t been any issues at the tattoo parlor, she said.
Momentum Tattoo was closed Friday. Employees at a neighboring business said they were around when the shooting reportedly occurred but didn’t hear or see anything. One employee said Hoffman came into her business at about 5:30 p.m. on the day of the incident and told her he had been shot.
She said his story caused some red flags in her mind because Hoffman didn’t know what time the incident happened, only that it was in the early afternoon, and that hours had gone by and he hadn’t reported it.
“It was really silly. I knew something was weird,” said the employee, who did not want to be identified for this story.
Bob Wynne and Chris Taylor of BC Signs, another neighboring business, said police came by on the night of the incident and asked for footage from their outdoor surveillance cameras. They, too, did not hear or see anything suspicious that day.
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