A few days after a Florida woman said she saw a clown while walking her dog, a Florida teen reported being chased by a clown while she and her friends were going to the school bus stop.
WTVT reports the teen was walking to the bus stop on Wednesday morning in Largo when her mother received a call from her saying that she was being chased by a clown. "She walked past a bush and she noticed something strange and when she looked again, she noticed it was a clown. They all took off running," Shakita Bellamy said.
Bellamy told WTVT that her daughter and her friends felt they got away, but the clown chased them again until they made it on the bus. “If it's a practical joke, it's not funny,” she said. “You never know who's behind the clown mask. Could be a pedophile; we have tons of pedophiles in this area.”
The Tampa Bay Times reports law enforcement is trying to get to the bottom of the clown-related incidents to figure out if it is a joke or something sinister. "Hopefully, it's just some people that think they're being funny," Gainesville police spokesman Ben Tobias said. "When in reality they're putting a lot of college students and parents who are here on edge."
The recent incidents have also angered professional clowns, who say this is giving their work a bad name. "The people causing these problems are not real clowns," Revonda Anderson, aka Vondie the Clown, told the Tampa Bay Times. "They're mean-spirited ... making fools of themselves and making people hurt in many ways. It's disgusting for us (clowns), and we have to fight that image."
Joye “Ting” Swisher with the Comedy Connection Caring Clowns told WTVT the people doing this “are not clowns. We are caring clowns. We are clowns that want to engage one-on-one with people, and touch peoples' lives in a positive manner,” she said.
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