Creepy Clown Phenomenon Arrives in Ohio, Spooks Norwalk Residents

NORWALK, OH — Creepy clowns have arrived in Ohio, or at least weird reports of them have. Residents in Norwalk reported several incidents involving people dressed as clowns harassing pedestrians last week, sending police officers there on a wild goose chase throughout the city.

After a night of chasing clowns, however, police concluded that the whole affair had been a prank that got out of hand. Someone posted a photo of two clowns on Facebook, and that post was shared more than 1,000 times. Then the calls started coming in.

Police concluded that many of the reports had been exaggerated, potentially deliberately, and located two suspects, one of whom just "wanted to get famous." Officers also said they were going to review recorded incident calls to try and identify voices and ensure each report wasn't part of a larger prank.

The calls started on the night of Sept. 22 when Norwalk police began receiving reports of four men, dressed like clowns, riding bicycles and harassing pedestrians on Cline Street. When police arrived on the scene, there were no clowns. They were, however, approached by a resident wanting to make another complaint about the clowns.

At 12:20 a.m., police received a call saying there were clowns loitering in the woods behind H&B Hop, an ice cream parlor at 296 W. Main St. The clowns were allegedly jumping out of the woods and attempting to scare people walking by.

At 1:43 a.m., a resident on Concord Court complained that she had seen a clown attempting to break into her house. Neighbors of the resident said they had been outside and hadn't seen any suspicious activity.

As the night continued to get stranger, callers began complaining that a motorcycle group was allegedly hunting for the clowns as well. However, officers only located three individuals sitting in a parked car on Glover Avenue. They said they had located the clowns on Facebook and that one of the clowns had taken a selfie at Norwalk Recreation Center. Police told the three people to go home.

Using Facebook photos posted by the suspects, officers were eventually able to track down the residence of one of the clowns. The suspect spoke to police the day after the incidents. He initially denied taking part in the pranks, said he was falsely accused on social media, and repeatedly asked officers if he could work as an undercover agent.

Eventually, he admitted that he and his girlfriend dressed up as clowns but said he only walked outside of his residence. He said he got the idea from a video they saw on the internet and that he had no intention of scaring anyone. However, the suspect's girlfriend posted a picture of the duo dressed as clowns and claimed to have spotted them on the way back from a restaurant. When the photo went viral, her boyfriend begged her to take it down, but she didn't. He claimed she wanted to be famous.

Police now believe that many people who posted on Facebook claiming to have seen the clowns were merely re-posting screen shots and claiming to have seen the clowns roaming throughout town.

Wellington Police, though denying having made a post about the clown incident, did paste a warning to potential "clowners" on their Facebook page. Wellington is about 30 minutes from Norwalk.

This Ohio incident follows a wave of clown-based crimes and reports in the south. Most recently, an Alabama man was arrested after he approached shoppers at a Georgia Walmart dressed like a clown. That incident followed a wave of reported clown sightings that swept through Georgia after first popping up in North Carolina and South Carolina in the past months.

Image via Pixabay