Police across nation make arrests for clown Facebook threats and false clown reports
Police across the nation have been arresting youths who are making threats to commit crimes while dressed as clowns, as well as people making false creepy clown reports.
In one case, a girl was accused of seeking to enlist a clown’s help in a murder plot, the Washington Post reports. Police arrested a 13-year-old girl in Hampton, Virginia, on Monday for contacting a person using a clown profile picture on social media and asking the clown to kill her middle-school teacher. She was charged with threatening to kill by electronic message, according to a press release.
The Post article also cites a report by WDSU that two 17-year-old students in Louisiana found themselves in legal trouble when they wore clown masks to high school. They were charged under a law that generally bars people from wearing a mask in public.
Sheriff’s police in LaGrange, Georgia, meanwhile charged two people with obstruction and unlawful conduct during a 911 call for falsely reporting that people dressed as clowns were standing near a white van, the New York Times reported last week. Police found the van and a driver who said he had run out of gas. No clown costume was found.
Police in the same town issued warrants for the arrests of four people for making terroristic threats after receiving reports that they were making Facebook threats to commit crimes at schools while dressed as creepy clowns.
Youths in Florida and Alabama were also charged with making terrorist threats for claiming on Facebook that they would harm students while dressed as clowns. Five students in Ohio, meanwhile, were charged with inducing panic for suggesting the “Clown Clan” visit their schools, the Cincinnati Enquirer reports. Two juveniles were also arrested in connection with threats.
There have also been threat arrests of students in Connecticut and Texas.
See also:
The Des Moines Register: “Police: Clown in custody at Des Moines high school”
Updated at 3:25 p.m. to note Iowa story.
