Creepy clown rumors hit Milwaukee-area schools

On Tuesday, Shana Sykes kept her son home from school at Universal Academy for the College Bound in Milwaukee — not because he was sick, but because Sykes had heard too many rumors about people in clown masks prowling around outside the school and scaring children.

In West Bend, a call to police from the father of a Badger Middle School student, alarmed about a message the student received from a self-identified clown, led to a 12-year-old girl being taken into custody.

Fueled by social media, rumors and prank calls, reports of people dressed as creepy clowns with supposedly malevolent intentions have caused some Milwaukee-area police and school districts to respond to parents and citizens this week. So far, police say no reports from the Milwaukee area have been substantiated.

In the West Bend incident, a 7th-grade girl faces a possible charge of disorderly conduct for sending messages to six students Monday identifying herself as a clown, according to West Bend police.

In the messages, the girl told the students that she knows where they live, where they attend school and, "If you see a red balloon just know I was there."

She also asked the students, "do you want to play?," according to a post on the West Bend Police Department Facebook page that did not state how the messages were sent.

"Numerous other students spread rumors regarding the 'clown.' This further disrupted the school day and learning environment at Badger Middle School and other West Bend schools," police said.

The girl was identified and taken into custody Tuesday for disorderly conduct and the case was referred to juvenile authorities, according to police.

A phone message left for West Bend police Tuesday afternoon seeking more information was not returned.

Milwaukee Public Schools Spokeswoman Katie Cunningham said Tuesday that the district had learned of several nonspecific threats against schools involving individuals wearing clown masks. She said the district was working with the Milwaukee Police Department to assess whether the threats were valid.

Milwaukee Police Sgt. Tim Gauerke said his department has received no clown-related calls, from Universal Academy or anywhere else in the city. But due to one nonspecific threat, the department placed a squad car outside of Riverside High School for a period of time this week.

"(It's) not surprising that when a trend like this emerges, rumors spread," Gauerke said.

The Oak Creek Police Department said in a news release Wednesday that it was not able to substantiate any of the numerous reports the department received of a costumed clown threatening young people. At one point, a fictional Facebook profile of a costumed clown was befriending children and making crude comments and vague threats online, but that account has since been taken down, the news release said. Oak Creek advised parents to monitor their children's social media accounts.

In Beloit, police are asking the pubic for help to identify the person who owns a Facebook account called, "Twisty the Clown."

Police are monitoring the account but say nothing illegal has been posted on it.

Twisty is the name of a clown character played by actor John Carroll Lynch in the TV series, "American Horror Story."

Reports of creepy clown sightings have spread to dozens of states in recent months; the trend appeared to grow out of a hoax in South Carolina in August. Wearing a costume is not illegal, but a few threats or related activity prompted a real response in other states, including arrests and some class cancellations. A high school in Washington state was put on a modified lockdown Tuesday because of a text-messaged threat from someone believed to be a clown. And a school district in Connecticut is even asking school leaders to prohibit children from wearing clown costumes on Halloween.

Police in Sheboygan this week also found nothing credible to several calls about lurking, threatening clowns. But a sighting of a creepy clown holding a cluster of black balloons in Green Bay in August turned out to be true: It was a marketing ploy for an independent film. Gags, a short horror film about a sinister clown, will screen at the Milwaukee Paranormal Conference Film Festival on Oct. 16.

erin.richards@jrn.com / (414)-426-9838 / @emrichards