'Creepy Clown' From Alabama Arrested at Georgia Walmart

NEWNAN, GA — An Alabama man was arrested in a Newnan Walmart parking lot Thursday, charged with approaching shoppers while dressed as a scary clown.

Rodney Allen Byram, 25, of Guntersville, Alabama, was charged with disorderly conduct by Newnan Police.

According to police, a woman called 911 in tears, saying that a strange man dressed as a clown was scaring people.

Another woman said she was scared to get out of her vehicle after someone dressed as a clown and wearing a mask walked up to her window, and a third said the man stood behind her while she was returning a video rental, scaring her.

A Facebook Live video posted to what appears to be Byram's Facebook page shows him at the store, first approaching shoppers inside, then shouting, laughing and approaching people in its parking lot.

In the video, a man who looks like the man in Byram's police mugshot is wearing a checkerboard jester outfit and a skull mask.

Some of the people who appear in the video laugh and play along, while others seem disturbed.

According to a police report, Byram told police he was dressed up because it's so close to Halloween, and that people wanted to take pictures with him.

He told police, "It's not illegal to scare people," according to the report.

"I think this man was lucky nothing dangerous happened to him," Newnan Police Chief D.L. "Buster" Meadows told the Newnan Times-Herald. "With so many people carrying guns these days, it wouldn’t have taken much for someone to decide to save the day."

The arrest comes after a wave of reported clown sightings that swept through Georgia after first popping up in North Carolina and South Carolina in the past month.

Early Friday, Byram appeared to have posted a new photo to Facebook: an image of himself, in full costume, next to a vehicle sporting the logo of Coweta Bonding Co.

Photo courtesy Newnan Police Department