No Clowning Around For New Haven Students

Creepy clowns are sending a scare through communities all over the country, but they might want to rethink any plans to frighten New Haveners, particularly school children.

For one thing, police officers are watching. For another thing, it might be the clown who needs police help.

Someone on Instagram has posted creepy clown photos suggesting that local high schools are ​“next” in line for what only he or she knows. The clown in questions has 1,378 followers on the social media platform, but doesn’t seem to respond to comments. And there are a lot of comments.

Reports of creepy clowns approaching students have swept the nation in recent weeks, but the consensus reaction in New Haven to what school and police officials say doesn’t appear to be a credible threat — the clown hasn’t actually threatened to do anyone any harm, nor has anyone pretending to be a clown committed any crimes — was not one of mass fright.

In fact, the reaction was more like: Knuck if you buck.

When people weren’t responding with lewd suggestions to the clown, or simply pointing out that the whole thing was probably a hoax, they were inviting the clown over to wherever the poster might be to catch a beatdown. Yep. Most people posting to the creepy clown were doing most of the threatening.

That should probably be taken as a warning by anyone running around town in a creepy clown getup — not that there have been any actual clown sightings, creepy or otherwise. (There was an incident of some middle schoolers horsing around with a clown mask, but they were caught and the mask was confiscated.)

A poster called ​“mxmi0” wrote: ​“Keep fucking with us, we’ll find you and your ass will be next.” Another poster, ​“thetopflexer” replied after that, ​“You guys already started Connecticut lol these clowns gonna die.”

Poster ​“katiekat1383,” was even more blunt, ​“I hope someone runs your dumb ass over.”

So it seems that the clown might be the one in need of 911 assistance if it comes face-to-face with a New Havener. But schools Superintendent Garth Harries said the district is erring on the side of caution when it comes to student safety.

Students are being asked to refrain from wearing clown costumes, or making any jokes about clowns that could be perceived as threatening, Harries said at a press conference in front of schools headquarters at 54 Meadow St. Tuesday afternoon. And he asked parents to make sure that their children didn’t come to school dressed as a clown or to even buy a clown costume.

Students caught with threatening clown paraphernalia will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, he said. The district also has reached out to Instagram to ask that the clown account in question be taken down. (We’ve been asked by officials not to link or share any pictures from the account as to not encourage would-be copycats.)

Officer David Hartman, spokesman for the police department, said that so far an investigation into the social media posts has turned up no tangible threats and that the problem of creepy clowns doesn’t appear to be operating as part of a ring of creepy clowns. That said, the department is still investigating and trying to get to the bottom of who the clown is and keeping an eye out in case the clown goes from just plain creepy to downright threatening.

“If we learn anything that leads us to believe there is a threat, there is new legislation in the state of Connecticut that allows us to apply felony penalties for anyone making a tangible threat at a school,” he said. ​“We have not seen this rise to that at all … but should things escalate, and we hope it doesn’t, we do have stricter laws that can be used in these cases.”