Clown hoaxes force cops to check pranks for real threats

Associated Press

STORRS, Conn.

Carrying golf clubs, shovels and hockey sticks, several hundred University of Connecticut students gathered just before midnight in a cemetery, ready to do battle with menacing clowns they had heard might be lurking among the headstones.

Police determined that Monday’s clown rumors, like dozens of others across the country, were a hoax. But with reports of clown sightings spreading, fueled largely by social media, authorities are being forced to take them seriously as a potential threat to public safety, particularly at schools, where principals have conducted lockdowns and canceled classes.

“There are many other emergencies and calls for service that troopers and other first responders need to get to without being misdirected to a prank,” Connecticut state troopers said in a statement.

Similar incidents have been reported this week at schools around the country, including Penn State University, where police said more than 500 students showed up early Tuesday to hunt for clowns.

Officials at Merrimack College in North Andover, Mass., ordered students to shelter in place for more than 30 minutes Monday night and evacuated a dorm after social media reports that an armed clown could be on campus.

The clown situations “waste valuable resources and can lead to injuries to both first responders and members of the public,” Connecticut state police said. “These clown pranks can cause major disruptions leading to schools, businesses and neighborhoods being placed into lockdown unnecessarily.”

Sociologists say the panic over clowns, which may seem silly from a distance, is actually a new twist on a phenomenon as old as witch hunts.

“There is a sense that there is some evil force out there that we have to organize together to attack,” said Dustin Kidd, a sociologist and pop culture expert at Temple University. “If anything, it’s just distracting us from the real ordinary threats that we face in our everyday lives.”

Rich Hanley, a journalism professor and social media expert at Quinnipiac University, which also had a clown scare this week, said the fear is easily spread by social media.

Posts on Twitter, Instagram and other sites, he said, often contain videos, images and statements that lack any context, factual filters or important details that would be contained in an actual news report. In a closed social situation, such as a school or university campus, that can easily lead to a less than rational response, he said.

Hanley compared the situation to a “Twilight Zone” episode titled “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street,” in which “the monsters were all in peoples’ heads,” he said. “People respond, looking for pitchforks to get the monsters.”

Because of that type of attention from the community, Hanley said, law enforcement must take the issue seriously.

“I don’t think they have a choice,” he said. He compared it to the practice known as “swatting,” in which someone calls 911 about a person being held hostage. Even though it’s a hoax, police, sometimes including SWAT teams, respond in force.