Creepy clown sightings began in South Carolina in August, and have since spread to Georgia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Alabama, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and elsewhere.
— TN Highway Patrol (@TNHighwayPatrol) September 24, 2016
Last Monday, a teen in Summitville, Tennessee, reported that he was assaulted by a man with a knife who was dressed in a red hoodie and clown mask.
The sheriff also warned potential clowns that they are in a “Second Amendment” county.
“Grundy County is a Second Amendment country,” Shrum stated. “I’m a Second Amendment sheriff. If someone wants to be ignorant and run around dressed like a clown to scare people, they stand a chance of getting hurt or killed. They take their life into their own hands — and that’s what I‘m afraid of. If you’re going to dress up like a clown and do stupid things, stupid things are going to happen to you.”
He also warned potential clown-hoaxers that false police reports are Class C felonies, which could land you two to 20 years in prison.
“All these copycats have started in Tennessee and now people are tying up law enforcement, tying up valuable time. We’re just not going to tolerate it,” said Shrum. “We’re not going around chasing clowns.”
A South Carolina town, Greenville, has been plagued with clown sightings and reports of red-nosed menaces attempting to lure children into the woods since August 21. Police reports about clowns have been steadily rolling in ever since.
"It's illegal. It's dangerous. It's inappropriate, and it's creating community concern so it needs to stop," Miller said, citing a law that bans anyone over the age of 16 from wearing a mask or concealing their identity in public, unless related to their employment.
Children who initially reported seeing the clowns told police that the colorfully-dressed characters “stay in a house located near a pond at the end of a man-made trail in the woods," according to a police report. When police searched the home in question, they found "no signs of suspicious activity or characters dressed in clown attire."
Last Wednesday, 12-year-old Brianne Hawke of Pottsville, Pennsylvania, made a report similar to those in South Carolina. She claimed that she was at the playground with friends when clowns began to chase them.
"A clown started chasing us up here and turned around and went back to the woods. So we thought it was gone, turned around, broke a stick and threw it at us, and started calling us, cursing at us, it was scary,” Hawke told a local station.
The same evening, two men dressed as clowns were reported in a nearby neighborhood yelling at children before driving off.
Police currently have no suspects in any of the states where there have been reported sightings.
