There are several outlandish creepy clown developments to report this week.
Let’s start by clearing the air about this hyped-up clown purge that is supposed to happen on or around Halloween.
Rumors of an impending creepy clown Halloween “purge” are greatly exaggerated. The threat is based on nothing more than a hoax that has been spread on social media.
Via KREM 2:
“Anybody can post anything they want on the internet,” said Shane Phillips from the Spokane Police Department.
Phillips said posts like this can just be an attempt to try and scare people.
The most recent viral posts KREM 2 viewers asked about threatens that there will be a ‘purge’ on the night before Halloween and asks people to put their pets inside and keep all doors and windows locked. Phillips added, that these types of hoaxes get perpetuated in the media and online.
“This is a night to go out and enjoy themselves and should not be stopped by posts like this,” said Phillips.
After a little snooping, it appears the original so-called “clown purge” threat comes from a Facebook account based in Ontario.
Just on the off-chance that there is a clown purge on Halloween, this personal trainer has some tips on how to run faster to escape the killer clowns:
Meanwhile, a county in Mississippi has adopted a zero-tolerance clown policy until after Halloween. In Kemper County it is now illegal for people to dress up as a clown in public—at least until Halloween is over.
Via Time:
Officials in Kemper County have reacted to the creepy clown craze that has taken over most of the U.S. and other parts of the world by passing an ordinance Monday that makes it unlawful for people to wear a clown costume, a clown mask or even clown makeup in public, the Kemper County Messenger reports.
“It has really gotten out of hand,” Kemper County Board President Johnny Whitsett said of the sweeping phenomenon, according to the newspaper.
Violators face a $150 fine until the ordinance is no longer in effect November 1.
Never ones to overreact to strange cultural trends, Target has decided to pull all of their clown masks off shelves ahead of Halloween.
Target said it wants to be sensitive of the creepy incidents that have led to violence and arrests in several states.
Good for them. Now if a creepy clown walks into one of their stores and demands to use the ladies room they will, of course, be sensitive to his bathroom needs.
All the clown sightings seem to be helping scary clown masks fly off the shelves in other stores.
National costume retailer Halloween Express says its clown costume sales are up 239 percent this year.
Kudos to Target for taking this brave stand on an important issue, even if it hurts their bottom line.
The creepy clown epidemic reached Cambodia this week where the unthinkable happened. An American student’s creepy clown prank ended in tragedy when he was chased into the jungle and he stepped on a landmine.
Via the Daily Mirror:
The unfortunate man trod on the deadly trap after scaring residents in Samraong in northwestern Cambodia.
Locals then chased the clown, which they thought was an ‘evil spirit’, into a nearby jungle and later heard a blast and realised the prankster had stepped on a mine.
Police were called but the man could not be identified as a result of his injuries.
He is believed to be a 25-year-old student who had returned from the US to visit relatives in the south-east Asian country.
Last week, PJ Media reported that a clown was beaten with a baseball bat. This week in Germany it was the other way around.
According to German police, a man disguised as a “horror clown” beat up a 19-year-old man with a baseball bat Thursday night in the northern German city of Rostock. The victim sustained injuries on his head and arm.
Earlier that day, a 15-year-old boy was threatened with a knife by a ‘creepy clown’ in the same town. The teenager was able to run away unharmed.
It is not clear whether both attacks were carried out by the same attacker.
On Tuesday, a (fake) machete-wielding clown alarmed residents of Plain City, Utah, prompting several people to dial 911. The Weber County Sheriff’s Office released the 911 calls reporting the clown threat on Friday.
Via ABC4 Utah:
“There’s a guy walking around here dressed in a clown suit with a machete,” said one caller. “He is heading east through the field and he’s been chasing cars and stuff.”
The young man dressed as a clown continued running and even approached Hadlei and her dad.
“So I was really scared,” she said. “And I told my dad, roll up the window, roll up the window and he was coming straight towards us.”
Her father said he came within 50 feet of then.
“(He was) dressed in a clown suit,” said Pierce. “He had fake blood on it. He had a machete. It looked to be about two feet long.”
It happened near the Plain City elementary school on 3600 West. Pierce and others pulled over to let authorities know what was going on.
One 911 caller wasn’t fooled by the plastic machete. “He had a creepy mask on,” the 911 caller told the dispatcher. “He had, it looked like a fake sword. But it’s just stupid to be doing that at this time of day.”
Authorities cited 18-year-old Kole Calvert with “disorderly conduct and not having a drivers license while on his all terrain vehicle.” The teen was apparently trying to prank his sister and her friends and creeped out a bunch of other people in the process.
https://youtu.be/fZKqU4ZsrBY
And there were two creepy clown sightings this week in the South Bay to North County in California:
Blake Ratcliff of Imperial Beach said a creepy clown peered into his home through a screen door Thursday night about 9 p.m.
“I was in shock and just froze up and just looked straight ahead and I didn’t know what to say,” Ratliff said.
Ratcliff said the man was wearing a plastic clown mask with red hair and red glowing eyes, wearing blue jeans and a white shirt.
“And then it went around the corner and left and we went and locked the door and called the sheriff,” Ratliff said deputies took a report.
It had red hair and was wearing a clown mask with red glowing eyes, according to the homeowner’s son, Blake Ratcliff.
The clown epidemic has reached virtually every state in the union, it now appears.
In Wyoming several residents have apparently threatened to shoot the creepy clowns on sight.
Radio station 101.9, The King has some tips for the would-be shooters.
While we can all agree that clowns are creepy, we should also recognize this hysteria for what it is…before somebody gets hurt.
In most cases, these are just teenagers trying to get some attention. They’re not evil, they’re hoodlums.
With that in mind, here’s a list of five tips to follow if you see a creepy clown in person.1. DON’T shoot them – Shooting a clown does not meet the legal justification for self-defense.
2. DON’T shoot at them – Trying to scare a clown by shooting at them is against the law. You could wind in jail and you might accidentally shoot someone else.
3. DON’T beat them up – We’d all like to teach these jerks a lesson, but beating up a clown doesn’t make you a hero. Just like chasing someone wearing clown shoes doesn’t make you a fast runner.
4. DO call the police – If you see a clown in public, they are disturbing the peace. Alerting the authorities of their location will help protect them and others who may do harm to them.
5. DO take pictures – The best way to prevent an unfortunate tragedy is to expose these clowns for who and what they are, attention-seeking hooligans. If you see one in your neighborhood, warn the people you know so they won’t freak out when they see one.
Clown hysteria also hit Hawaii, where clown threats prompted security concerns at a Honolulu school.
Parents and students got concerned after an 808Clownz Instagram post implied there would be an attack on campus Friday.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Army Garrison-Hawaii said it received an inquiry about clowns making threats.
Both threats turned out to be products of hoaxes, but residents remain on edge.
“I don’t think it’s funny. It could be a joke but it’s not funny. A threat is a threat and we gotta take it seriously,” said Barbara Mindoro, parent of a student at Waianae Intermediate.
And there have been several confirmed clown sightings in New Hampshire in recent days:
Police in several New Hampshire communities investigated reports of clown sightings on Monday night. Durham police confirmed reports of a person dressed as a clown walking around the University of New Hampshire campus.
Police said the clown was reportedly using a megaphone but that no weapons were reported.
Delaware has also reported its first creepy clown sighting:
Delaware State Police received word of a clown walking along Bison Road Saturday in the Woodside area south of Camden, said Master Cpl. Gary Fournier, a spokesman. Troopers were dispatched to the scene, but no one was found in the area, he said.
“Obviously, any time there’s some spike in similar reports of these types of occurrences, it heightens the awareness of it through people,” Fournier said. “We want to make sure we check them out to the fullest extent.”
Despite the somewhat silly nature of it, the public should report anything suspicious to police, especially as reports become more serious in some areas.
Clown pranks are stoking fear in North Dakota now, too:
This week, a clown sighting put Fargo neighbors on edge. Another clown was spotted lurking on the UND campus but left without incident. Even though it’s the season for scare tactics… some say the jokes are going too far.
Fargo Police issued out a tweet Tuesday that read, “”Can we all agree that dressing as a creepy clown, now, or for Halloween is probably not the best idea? #TooSoon #YoureSuspicious.” Under the tweet, they reiterated that while it is not a crime to wear a clown costume, it’s not advised.
The creepy clown phenomenon has even made its way into South Dakota. With several Rapid City students claiming recently to have received messages and friend requests from a site called phanom thaklown. There were also reports circulating on social media of people allegedly claiming to see clowns hanging around Rapid City schools. After investigating police in Rapid City found no validity to those claims.
Even Sioux Falls has not been immune from creepy clowns. On Wednesday night (October 5) Argus 911 reported that police received a call from a resident claiming to see someone dressed as a clown jumping out and scaring drivers near Memorial Park.
And now the clown threat has spread to Alaska:
Sometime last week the troubling trend that started in the southeastern U.S. made its way to Southeast Alaska. Juneau resident Bettyann Marie Boyd first heard about the clowns from her kids three or four days ago.
Boyd said that her kids have heard about the clowns from their peers in Riverbend Elementary School. Though neither Boyd nor her children have seen anybody dressed as a clown, her 10-year-old son was particularly distraught by the rumors.
“He won’t go outside, and he actually started crying, and it was all because of the clowns,” Boyd said, explaining that her son is no longer willing to walk a few hundred feet down the street to his friend’s house once it starts getting dark. “The trauma is in the schools. It’s becoming really scary.”
Boyd and her children aren’t the only people in town worried about the trend.
PJ Media has previously reported clown incidents in at least 33 states: South Carolina, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee, Maryland, Georgia, New York, Pennsylvania, Alabama, Indiana, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, Michigan, Illinois, Nebraska, Idaho, California, Massachusetts, Oklahoma and Montana.
Additional sightings in Maine, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Mexico, Utah, Vermont, and Washington have been tracked by Heavy bringing the total number of states affected by Clownageddon. to at least 40.
The addition of Wyoming, Hawaii, Delaware, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota and Alaska, bring the grand total to 47. Most likely, the few states not included on this list have been affected by the clown plague as well.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member