Dumb Clowns Getting Closer

The Detroit News: Armed clown allegedly chases teen in West Bloomfield

A panicked 17-year-old thought he was being chased by an armed clown in West Bloomfield Township when he banged on a stranger’s door to ask for help, police said.

. . .

“He said he was running from a clown that was chasing after him with a knife,” Lawson said.

The teen told investigators he was jogging along Pontiac Trail when he heard someone run through the woods toward him.

Pontiac Trail is getting a little too close for comfort, considering I've walked along there myself and often drive over there as there's a very nice nature trial good for walking the dog and enjoying a long walk outdoors.

Apparently that's the 4th clown incident in West Bloomfield.

Monday’s incident was the fourth clown encounter in the township in about two weeks, Lawson said.

“Although it appears most of these incidents are pranks, there’s a potential that there’s going to be a negative outcome and someone is going to feel threatened and feel the need to defend themselves,” Lawson said. “That’s our biggest concern right now.”

No kidding. Nothing good is going to come out of masked clowns threatening people with knives, whether the knives are real or not.

Play Stupid Clown Games, Win Stupid Prizes

Sure enough, some clowns have been getting their comeuppance recently.

I had predicted (which was rather obvious) that wearing a mask and going around scaring people wouldn't end well for the masked idiots. Thanks to reader JoeMama, we have a report that one clown has indeed experienced such a comeuppance. The Daily Mail: Creepy clown gets beat up with a baseball bat when he tries to scare a group of friends hanging out in their car

Scaring strangers by putting on a clown mask and approaching them generally isn't the smartest idea. Basically, scaring strangers in an uncontrolled environment is never a good idea as you don't know how they will react.

It also can lead to criminal charges:

Two eighteen year olds in Michigan wearing clown masks and carrying a bat who chased some 14 year old teenagers and were caught, arrested and appropriately charged with disorderly conduct.

While the current creepy clown craze may be mainly overplayed hysteria, idiots like these aren't helping, and this isn't "reality" television where the scares are either safely conducted or dramatized for TV in a controlled situation.

While scaring your friends may be all well and good, scaring strangers who aren't in on the joke can lead to some pretty bad results.

One day some stupid clown prankster is going to have a weapon in hand and try and scare a stranger and the stranger will have a response that will be something like this:

That's not going to end well for the clown.

It's also not going to be pleasant for the person who ends up shooting in the reasonable belief that their life is being threatened by a masked person advancing on them with a weapon. While it will likely be legally justifiable, having to shoot someone even justifiably is a majorly traumatic situation, and the clown idiots will have forced a normal person to shoot them with all the trauma that involves over their attempted attack/scare game/bad joke.

The people the clowns are scaring aren't in on the joke, (assuming it is a joke and not an attempted at armed robbery or other criminal conduct under the guise of a joke), and the clowns are causing them to have a reasonable and justifiable belief that they're about to be threatened with deadly force. What could possibly go wrong?

This Clowning Around Stuff Needs To Stop

Apparently idiots, criminals, and idiotic criminals are going all-out nationwide with this Clown silliness.

What started as just creepy and seemed to be mainly induced hysteria from a few examples is rapidly ending up criminal and the Detroit area is not immune from the sending in of the clowns:

The Detroit News: Cops: Armed man in clown, pumpkin mask robs hotels

The Detroit News: Detroit area clown encounters play into fears nationwide

Somebody is likely going to get seriously hurt if people dressed as clowns keep assaulting people, and it will likely be someone wearing clown shoes.

Now For Your Creepy Story of The Day

Especially if you hate clowns, or even worse, robotic clowns, or even worse than that, a combination of a robotic clown and a pedophile sex offender.

The Detroit Free Press: Missing animated park clown found in sex offender's house

Some things are best not known nor bear being thought about too much.