For years, they’ve been spotted in spurts, often in situations where their mere presence is oppressive enough. Sometimes it’s near a playground, or amid the trees just outside an apartment complex.
We’re talking about creepy clowns, of course: Folks who like to dress up as some twisted vision of the circus entertainers and stalk around with the express purpose of frightening people. The phenomenon had seemed to center around North Carolina in its last incarnation, but this year, it looks like the carnival characters are headed to the midwest.
The creepy clown phenomenon has once again reared its proverbial grease-painted head as residents of one Minnesota community have reported sightings of a haunting harlequin. The presence of the unsettling individual came to light last Friday evening when the chief of police in the city of Annandale took to social media to alert the public.
“Concerns about a ‘clown’ in the area have been brought to my attention,” Pete Standafer wrote, assuring residents that the department is “aware of this individual and we continue to monitor the situation.”
And it gets weirder.
As if a message regarding a clown lurking in the community wasn’t weird enough, the chief’s statement took something of a strange turn as he explained that “in order to take any action about individuals who are potentially concerning, we need to justify a legal basis of the terms ‘alarm or annoyance’ regarding the conduct someone is engaged in.”
He went on to write that “if an actual complaint to the police is not made, it affects our ability appropriately to deal with the situation.” This would seem to suggest that no one has actually filed an official report about the clown as of yet, leaving authorities essentially powerless to do anything about the harlequin.
One person reported that they had seen the “clown” riding around the city on a scooter, which, to be fair, isn’t all that terribly “creepy”, but still begs the question as to why anyone would be conducting themselves in this way.
