It was only a matter of time before the creepy clowns made their way to Juneau.
Toward the end of August, reports of people dressing as clowns to scare unsuspecting victims started cropping up in South Carolina. The prank became an internet sensation and copy clowns have since been reported as far away as Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom.
Sometime last week the troubling trend that started in the southeastern U.S. made its way to Southeast Alaska. Juneau resident Bettyann Marie Boyd first heard about the clowns from her kids three or four days ago.
Boyd said that her kids have heard about the clowns from their peers in Riverbend Elementary School. Though neither Boyd nor her children have seen anybody dressed as a clown, her 10-year-old son was particularly distraught by the rumors.
“He won’t go outside, and he actually started crying, and it was all because of the clowns,” Boyd said, explaining that her son is no longer willing to walk a few hundred feet down the street to his friend’s house once it starts getting dark. “The trauma is in the schools. It’s becoming really scary.”
Boyd and her children aren’t the only people in town worried about the trend.
Juneau resident Brittney Armstrong posted about the clowns on Juneau Community Collective, a public Facebook group, Tuesday afternoon. In her post, Armstrong said that her teenage daughter saw somebody dressed as a clown near Floyd Dryden Middle School during the weekend. Armstrong also wrote that two people dressed as clowns “holding metal objects” reportedly chased after a coworker’s car Monday night.
Armstrong declined to speak further about the clowns with the Empire on Tuesday afternoon.
Her Facebook post struck a chord with other concerned parents and Juneau residents. By the end of the business day Tuesday, people had shared the post more than 40 times and it had more than 80 comments.
Several people who commented on the post mentioned that they would be changing their kids’ afterschool plans as a result of the clown sightings. Boyd said that she has already noticed this happening at Riverbend Elementary.
“A lot of parents are picking up their kids because of this and not allowing them to walk home,” she said.
Other people who commented on Armstrong’s post worried that the all of the clowning around could come to a nasty head. Several people commenting on the post threatened violence against any clowns they might encounter. Other people worried for the clowns safety, noting that the culprits behind the clown masks are likely kids themselves.
“It’s getting pretty dangerous,” Boyd told the Empire, echoing some of the comments on Armstrong’s Facebook post. “Somebody could get hurt, and it might be whoever is behind the clown mask.”
Juneau Police Department spokesman Lt. David Campbell told the Empire the department has not yet received any report of a clown sighting in town, although they too have heard about it.
Anchorage has recently been struck with similar hysteria, police there are receiving very few official reports of clown activity. The Alaska Dispatch News reported Thursday that only one clown sighting has been reported to the Anchorage Police Department.
During the past couple months, people dressed as clowns have caused panic in communities across the country.
Late last month, The New York Times reported that clown pranks had led to a dozen arrests in several states. Schools in one Ohio district were closed due to safety concerns after a person dressed as a clown allegedly attacked a woman. And police are investigating whether the stabbing death of a 16-year-old boy in Pennsylvania is connected to the clown craze, according to the Associated Press.
Still, one of the most difficult questions posed by the clown trend is what kind of response it warrants from both community members and police, and that question has yet to be answered in Juneau.
“There’s been a whole bunch of incidents going on, but nobody really knows how seriously to take this,” Boyd said.
• Contact reporter Sam DeGrave at 523-2279 or sam.degrave@juneauempire.com.
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