On Tuesday evening, the circus came to a small town in Maine, this time with a clown holding a machete.
At roughly 6 p.m. Tuesday, police received a 911 call, according to WCSH6. State Trooper Adam Schmidt stated that residents in Hollis witnessed a man walking along Plains Road wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and a clown mask, and holding a machete. After he was spotted, he ran into the woods.
After about an hour, 31-year-old Corey Berry of Hollis, who had duct-taped the machete to his amputated arm, came out of the woods in Waterboro. He was taken into custody and charged with criminal threatening, then transported to York County Jail, where he posted $200 bail.
Schmidt said Berry was quite drunk but cooperative; Berry said he was attempting to play a prank and copy previous creepy clown sightings.
The “creepy clown” phenomenon began in the summer and fall of 2016, and resurfaced this summer; a Montana man wearing clown makeup allegedly hurled fireworks into traffic according to Daily Inter Lake. A man dressed as a clown in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, allegedly attempted to cajole a 9-year-old girl into following him by offering her money, according to the Associated Press. On July 2, two knife-wielding men, one of whom was dressed as a clown, frightened two young girls as they played outside in Madison, Wisconsin, according to the Wisconsin State Journal.