A preview of an upcoming article being posted to the IFPO Newsletter: "Creepy Clowns: The Panic of 2016" by Lawrence J. Fennelly, CHS III, CPO, CSS and Marianna A. Perry, M.S., CPP

In this article Fennelly and Perry examine the resent strange clown sightings all over the country and offer some insights. Here is a small sample of the article.

"To give you some background, for about two months now people have been reporting encounters with mysterious, seemingly malevolent clowns that are sparking rumors that the jokers plan to kidnap or molest children, shoot a classroom full of children, or otherwise victimize people—especially children. As is often the case during these phantom-clown scares—and yes, this isn't the first one—the incidents generally fall into one of the four categories below:
1. Someone, usually a child – reports that he or she spotted a clown lurking around or that they were attacked by a clown. No one every finds this elusive clown. The episode never gets resolved, and in many cases there is doubt that anything actually happened.
2. An adult or young adult reports that he or she spotted a clown lurking in a neighborhood or that they were attacked by a clown. Again, no one finds the mysterious clown. The difference in this situation is that the episode does get resolved, because the person who made the report confesses to making it up.
3. An individual circulates a clown threat or clown sighting or clown something on Facebook or through another form of social media. This entire situation turns out to be a hoax and it ends up there never was a clown sighting or incident.
4. A prankster decides to take advantage of the fear spread by numbers one through three above, by dressing as a clown and scaring people by watching them from a distance and in many cases chasing them, and sometimes carrying a weapon, which is never used. This clown does not kidnap, molest or shoot anybody. Instead, this individual wants to be a part of the latest social media trend.

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