Add two Arkansas cities to the list of towns where clown sightings have been reported in Southern states since late August.
Noel Foster, the mayor of White Hall, said two or three unverified clown sightings were reported in Pine Bluff near its border with White Hall. Lt. David DeFoor, a spokesman for the Pine Bluff Police Department said officers had responded to only one sighting Sunday night.
Police received a call about a clown in the woods behind the Tractor Supply store at 6309 Sheridan Road, DeFoor said. The store is in Pine Bluff, but the area behind it is in White Hall. Officers from both departments responded to the sighting call.
Officers don't know who reported the sighting, but the clown was said to be carrying a machete or something else in his hand, DeFoor said. While several sightings have been reported, no officers have seen any clowns, DeFoor and Foster said.
But even if they had, before the officers could arrest the clown, they would have to prove that the clown intended to commit a crime, DeFoor said. Otherwise, the most the officers could do is talk to the clowns and advise them to stop making the public uneasy.
"You can't charge someone for carrying a machete," DeFoor said. "And there's nothing illegal about wearing a clown costume, or on Halloween we'd be arresting thousands of people."
Clown sightings are no longer a new phenomenon in the South. Multiple sightings have been reported in Georgia, the Carolinas, Kentucky and Alabama over the past couple of months. The reports include clowns trying to lure children into the woods, and the jesters riding in a van.
Foster, who was White Hall's police chief for 23 years before he was elected mayor, said White Hall officers are conducting extra patrols near the Pine Bluff border.
"I feel like it's somebody or some young person doing it for attention," he said.
He said he thought the sightings had been overdramatized on social media and that "if I thought there was a real threat, I'd be out there myself trying to find out."
To Foster, the sightings presented a different problem.
"It's a waste of resources," he said.
Metro on 09/21/2016