After reports of clowns roaming Gainesville on Tuesday, some students formed search parties to find them, to the bewilderment of others, who decided instead to stay home.
Gainesville Police increased its patrol at in the 700 block of SW Depot Ave. following a complaint, first reported on Twitter, said GPD spokesman Ben Tobias. There was also a suspicious activity call on Southwest 12th Street, near Sorority Row, after someone saw girls running around and screaming, he said.
Police responded to both. Both times, no clowns.
After the Sorority Row sighting, a group of about 30 students armed with golf clubs, pipes and baseball bats walked around the area looking for anyone dressed as a clown, WUFT reported.
On Wednesday, Tobias encouraged students and residents to call police if they see anything suspicious and to refrain from taking the law into their own hands.
"We have heard reports of folks wanting to 'hunt' these clowns and potentially injure them," Tobias said in a statement. "This is a bad situation all the way around. I hope that folks will stop with the pranks before someone gets hurt. Police are aware and are investigating any incidents as they come in, but none of our officers have witnessed the activity themselves.”
After first gaining national attention in August, so-called “creepy clown” sightings were first reported in Gainesville on Sept. 27, according to Alligator archives. In that case, a woman told police she saw someone dressed as a clown near Georgetown Apartments.
Alec Montalbano, a UF digital arts and sciences senior, said although he isn’t scared of the masked lurkers, he would not intentionally seek them out.
“If they were outside my house, I’d call the police or I’d go outside and ask them to leave,” the 21-year-old said.
But for Hasin Sharma, an 18-year-old UF history freshman, she is just a willing partner away from going clown-hunting.
“Clowns aren’t scary, I’m scary,” she said. “I might die, but so what.”
