Just pulling your leg beard

Over Shmini Atzeret, two rival Satmar groups -- between 500-1,000 men -- rioted in a Williamsburg shul, forcing police to intervene and restore order. According to Newsday,

one person was treated at Long Island University Hospital for a slap to the face.

Must have been some slap. And, according to the NY Post, the brawl included "punches, slaps and beard-pulling."
I know this is very depressing stuff and a brawl on Yom Tov, of all times, in a shul, of all places, is particularly disgusting, but somehow I find it hard to take the whole thing seriously when the image that keeps popping into my head is of the police being called in to control up to 1,000 men pulling each other's beards...