11-Year-Old Athens Girl Arrested With Knife For Clown Protection

ATHENS, GA — An 11-year-old Athens girl has been arrested for coming to school with a knife she said she needed to protect herself from clowns.

The girl, a student at Burney-Harris-Lyons Middle School, was arrested Friday, as reports of strange clown sightings continued to sweep through Georgia.

"She said that the reason she had the knife was for protection for her and her family because she had heard the stories about clowns jumping out of the woods and attacking children," an officers wrote in an Athens-Clarke County Police report.

The girl was taken by the school's principal to the office, where she was interviewed by a school police officer. After contacting the state juvenile justice department, the girl was released into her mother's custody.

She was charged with possession of a weapon on school grounds.

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In Georgia, reports of people dressed as clowns trying to scare others have cropped up in the past couple of weeks in places including Athens, Dublin, LaGrange, Macon, Statesboro and Thompson.

Many remain unsubstantiated. Some have proven to be fakes and, in a handful of cases, there have been arrests, with the guilty parties saying they were just trying to have fun and play a prank.

But law enforcement has warned of real dangers that could result from folks dressing up in order to scare others.

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