Police Arrest Another Juvenile for Creepy Clown School Threats, A History of the New Clown Craze

GARFIELD HEIGHTS, OH - Police in Garfield Heights have arrested a 16-year-old male resident for making threats to area schools and individuals on Instagram over the weekend. The suspect is being charged with inducing panic and menacing. Police say there was no credibility to the suspect's threats.

The juvenile told Garfield Heights Detective Gary Menary that he was just following a national trend of creepy clown threats to schools and individuals and that he never intended to actually hurt anyone. The suspect is believed to have been behind the clownbitch23 Instagram account that made direct threats to Garfield Heights High School and Euclid High School in posts.

That account posted a picture with the words "Garfield high school tm" and wrote, "Murder spree on the gang man..." at 2 a.m. Monday morning. The account also posted a picture of a clown and then re-posted the same photo several times, each time with a threat or slur in the caption. Several other copycat accounts popped up shortly after the original post and began making similar threats. Schools in Garfield Heights, Beachwood, Eastlake, Euclid, Orange, Shaker Heights and Twinsburg were placed on high alert following similar threats.

The clownbitch23 account user also wrote that while everyone was commenting on his post, thinking he was joking, he was serious about his threats. The account drew nearly 2,800 followers in less than 24 hours. Several of the posts on the account were graphic and used racial slurs. The account was deleted as of Wednesday morning.

Menary says that his department worked with Instagram to determine the identity of the suspect and was able to make an arrest within 24 hours of becoming aware of the threats.

One copycat account that may have spawned as a result of the 16-year-old's threats was the notclowningaround12 account, which made several threats to east side schools. Eastlake police determined the account was being run by three Eastlake Middle School students on Monday and arrested two 12-year-olds and one 11-year-old.

Eastlake Police Chief Lary Reik says the girls themselves were also likely inspired by recent national headlines about clown-related pranks and crimes. Police say the girls were remorseful and gave full confessions. Charges will be reviewed with the Juvenile Prosecutor and the department diversion program.

You can see the Eastlake Police Department's Facebook post on the incident below:

These incidents are merely the latest in a series of creepy clown sightings, pranks, and crimes that have spread across the United States. So far, about a dozen people have been arrested in multiple states, and there have been creepy clown reports in at least 28 states, according to media reports.

The first creepy clown report was in South Carolina in mid-August when a group of children told a sinister tale of clowns living in an abandoned house in the woods and trying to entice them with money to follow them into the woods, The New York Times reported. Police weren’t sure at the time if the sightings were real or the product of children’s imaginations.

As the craze has spread, creepy clown sightings have become something of an urban legend. However, police are getting serious about the epidemic of creepy clown reports that have resulted in school lockdowns in Reading, Ohio and Alabama.

One of the first incidents in Ohio involving clowns was in mid-September when the town of Norwalk briefly developed clown fever that sent police on a wild goose chase through town in the middle of the night. Residents reported seeing clowns breaking into their house, clowns hiding in the woods, and motorcycle gangs hunting the clowns down. In the end, most of the residents recanted their stories and two teenagers were arrested for inciting panic after their picture, of themselves dressed as clowns, went viral and spooked the entire city.

Why are the reports spreading?

Experts have weighed in with some possible explanations. David G. Myers, a professor of psychology at Hope Collegein Holland, Michigan, told The New York Times the reports, which he called “mass hysteria,” play to people’s fears.

Jason D. Seacat, an associate professor of psychology at Western New England University in Springfield, Massachusetts, said people who perpetuate the hoax with reports may just want to be part of a national news event.

“Since the event appears to be difficult to verify, the claim that one has had such an encounter is easier to make and relatively free from the risk of being called out as a fraud,” he said in an email to The Times. “So, low risk of being called out for lying and the benefit of positive attention for reporting such a claim may motivate some people to lie.”

After similar phenomena occurred in the 1980s in Boston, Loren Coleman, a cryptozoologist who studies the folklore behind mythical beasts such as Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster, developed “The Phantom Clown Theory,” which chalked it up to mass hysteria, usually as a result of children’s reports, CNN reported.

Children aren’t that fond of clowns to begin with, according to a 2008 study in England that concluded decorating children’s wards in hospitals with clown images may give already ill children the heebie jeebies.

“As adults we make assumptions about what works for children,” Dr. Penny Curtis, a researcher with the University of Sheffield, told BBC at the time. “We found that clowns are universally disliked by children. Some found them quite frightening and unknowable.”

In the United States, fear of clowns may have been sparked by 1970s serial killer John Wayne Gacy, who had a children’s party gig as “Pogo the Clown” and also painted clown pictures. Scary movie clowns followed, including Pennywise, the clown from Stephen King’s 1990 movie “It.”

See also:

• Creepy Clown Sightings Hurting Real Clowns' Business In Texas And Elsewhere
• Creepy Clown Phenomenon Arrives in Ohio, Spooks Norwalk Residents
• Suspicious Clown Sightings Under Investigation By N.J. Police
• More Creepy Clown Sightings In NJ, And They're Getting Creepier

Patch Editor Beth Dalbey contributed to this story.

Photo from Patch files