Another day, another set of clown stories as the Great Clown Panic keeps advancing on menacing, floppy-shoed feet.
Another clown sighting in Pennsylvania played out thusly, according to local media:
Around 11 p.m. Thursday a man said he was confronted by a person dressed as clown in the alley behind his home in the first block of East High Street, police said.
The clown made a “jolting movement” toward the man causing him to run away in fear, according to police.
According to police, the clown never struck, hit, touched or spoke to the man.
The clown is described as approximately 5 foot 11 inches tall of an unknown race wearing a clown mask with red or yellow hair and a green or black shirt with camouflage triangles on it, police said.
Now there's signs of clown panic in California. A new Instagram account appeared, and offers
the ominous warning “We are coming to LA tomorrow! We will be invading Los Angeles, Carson, Culver City, Torrance, Crenshaw, Inglewood, Pasadena, Compton, Lakewood, Palmdale etc. !!” and 11 posts of frightening clowns hanging out in various locations.
(Has anyone assembled a portfolio of the most-recycled clown photos yet?)
Some police are now warning Americans to avoid just shooting scary clowns.
And yet, as Jesse Walker observes, there's nothing here. There is no clown movement. There aren't actually any clown crimes.
Are there any other solid crimes to report? Well, some clown-scare roundups have also included a stabbing in Reading, Pennsylvania. That incident doesn't seem to have much in common with the larger clown rumors either; details are hazy, but it appears to have been a fight over a clown mask. The mask was being worn (on top of his head, not over his face) by the victim, not the stabber.
So no, we're not in the middle of a wave of clown attacks. There's just one clown-related crime that has seriously taken off in the last couple of months, and that's the crime of filing a false police report.
Now to find time to synthesize all of these stories, or at least tag the reports.
(thanks to Steve Kaye, Ed Webb, ...)
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