Video: Residents React To Clown Sightings

COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – Clowns are the talk of the town in Columbus this week, and it’s not because the circus is in town.

Columbus Police confirm six reported clown sightings, but  they haven’t tracked anyone down in a clown costume or made any arrests.

Reports of people dressed up as clowns and luring children into the woods started in South Carolina last month. Now those clown sightings are spreading to other states.

WCBI’s Jory Tally went to a neighborhood where there have been reported clown sightings.

Far from being a laughing matter, this week clowns have many people on edge. While there have been no reports of the clowns causing harm, there has been harassment on social media from Facebook clown accounts, that and the sightings have some scared.

“He come running in the house, and he says mamma, the clowns are out here again.”

This picture brings fear to a resident on Gaylane Drive, but the fear spreads all over East Columbus.

Greentree Apartment resident, Jacob Vincent, was outside his apartment earlier this week with his friends, when a car with two clowns inside pulled up creepily laughing.

“It was a dark, blue Tahoe. It pulled up on me when I was sitting on the sidewalk, and they acted like they were going to get out of the truck, and then they didn’t, so I was fixing to go toward the truck and start beating them, but they got back in the truck and left.”

Jacob’s mother says that wasn’t his last run in with clowns. She says he and other kids were out on clown patrol when this happened.

“One of them had walked into Greentree as far as I know, and he seen it, and you know because the clown was up almost on him, my son kept telling him saying, turn around, turn around, and about that time, he turned around and when he did, the clown started chasing him and he fell, and he said the clown had scratched him,” says Deborah Vincent.

We reached out to other Greentree residents, who didn’t want to go on camera because they were scared clowns would find them on Facebook, and send them threatening messages like some people they know have received.

“If they’re making the threats on Facebook, then of course that’s cyber stalking, and they can be charged with that. On the other charge, if they’re just in the street, or one of the cases where the lady said they were actually on their property, then they are trespassing, so there’s some legal things that we can do, and if they’re out in the street and they’re just riding by, that’s really not illegal,” says Columbus Assistant Police Chief Fred Shelton.

However, it is a illegal if people are dressed as clowns and break the law. Shelton says the clown sightings are no laughing matter.

“There’s nothing funny about this. If you’re out there and doing this, then I would suggest that you stop because again, you’re putting yourself in harms way because someone might be afraid of you, and they might do what they need to do to protect themselves, and then it was just a senseless prank, but however you’re hurt.”

Shelton encourages parents to keep a close eye on their children, and that’s exactly what some people are doing.

“We try to keep them in at night time, you know, and people are pretty good about that around here. They watch their children and stuff, and since this clown stuff has been going on, everybody has been keeping their children inside,” says Deborah Vincent.

Shelton encourages people to call the police if they see a clown and to not approach one.

Shelton says majority of the reports point to one clown, but at one point they thought there was two.

One person has been ticketed for filing a false report, and Shelton says reporting false claims is illegal, and if you do so, you’ll be paying a $500 dollar fine.