Recent clown threats target Samo

An epidemic of fear has tapped into the heart of Americans across the country, and has made a little pit stop at Samo. The children of Fleetwood Manor Apartments in Greenville, South Carolina were the first to notice the “creepy clown” lurking around their basketball courts sometime around Aug. 20. Some neighborhood kids even reported the clown to be attempting to lure children into the woods. After these reports and after the apartment complex had issued a letter of warning to its residents, more people in their little town began to have similar experiences. A clown under a stoplight with a blinking nose waved to an innocent woman passing by. There were reports of people flashing laser lights and other sounds of chains and banging coming from the woods. At this point, people had really began to take the issue seriously. Also, the news went viral. Since these unusual sightings, news of these so-called “creepy clowns” has come from over 24 states in the U.S., and the numbers are rising. An even more recent trend has revealed the clowns not only terrorizing neighborhood kids, but more specifically targeting high schools around the country. In California specifically, schools in Oakland, Fairfield and Sacramento have issued reports of threats from the clowns. Moving closer and closer to Santa Monica, another recent phenomenon was an Instagram account which profiled clowns in California, called @wearecomingtocali, on which the account owners claimed to be “invading” various Los Angeles County cities, such as Carson, Culver City, Torrance, Crenshaw, Pasadena, Compton and others. On Oct. 6, the account posted a Google Maps screenshot which had a pin dropped at Samo; the school’s crest was also featured in the picture. The picture’s caption said, “Schools we will be visiting today and tonight, if you happen to see us come say hello,” with a knife and balloon emoji. There were also accounts of the same types of pictures being posted on Twitter. These threats were perhaps prompted by other instagram or twitter users commenting on earlier photos of the account telling the clowns to “come to Samo.” No matter the cause, Samo officials did not take this threat lightly, and jumped right into action securing the school and calling in police enforcement to verify the safety at this time. Samo principal Dr. Antonio Shelton sent home a voicemail to all families warning them about the impending danger in this vague threat, as well as an email detailing Samo’s involvement with the law enforcement and security. In the letter, he wrote that while the law enforcement did not believe the threat was credible, as a precautionary measure they took additional steps to increase patrolling around campus.“My first reaction was to address how we would keep our students and school community safe,” Shelton said. He also stated that the Santa Monica Police Department was very helpful and supportive throughout the whole ordeal. Rudy Flores, with the Santa Monica Police Department recalls police involvement with the threat that started on social media. “Our SRO’s (School Resource Officers) who work the schools were notified. They made sure they monitored specifically the high school for any type of unusual activity. We added additional resources who were all on standby, like other officers who were working other details,” Flores said. “We contacted to make sure our communications center was aware of anything, and if they got any type of report of anything suspicious to notify the SRO’s immediately.”He also said that the Police Department also spoke to the Samo security and the administration to go over a few things and make sure that everyone was on the same page. From his account, the day went smoothly and no clowns were sighted, and they were able to wrap up the week with no worry of suspicious clown activity at Samo. Though there were no clown sightings at Samo, there have been other unreported sightings in Santa Monica and other close cities. A few days after the scare at Samo, Spanish teacher Guadalupe Toumayan, had her own encounter with one of these infamous terrorizers. It was Oct. 10, at around 7:00 p.m. near the intersection of Centinela and Venice Blvd. Toumayan was walking with her daughter, Estella, and her daughter’s puppy, Charlie, on their way to visit some family members in Mar Vista for a birthday party. It was getting dark and they were three blocks away from the house. While they were walking, Toumayan heard an unusual noise, and turned around, but because it was dark, she could not see anything. Her daughter used her mother’s flashlight to shine a light in the direction of the sound. “All of a sudden, I saw a guy dragging his leg,” Toumayan said. She thought the man about a block and a half away might have been just having trouble walking, but when her daughter shone the flashlight on his head, they saw that he was wearing a clown mask. She did not see any weapons, but when he knew they had noticed him, he started making weird, clown-like, high-pitched laughing noises and saying things like “I’m going to kill you.” The moment this happened, Toumayan, her daughter, and the dog took off running. The clown started running after them, still dragging his leg. When they got to the house, still running, the front door was locked, and they started banging on the door. Toumayan thought that because they were at a house, the clown would back off, but he did the opposite, and started speeding up. Because he was getting very close, they ran around to the back door, which was unlocked, so they were safe. When they went inside and told their cousins, they did not believe them at first, but went to check outside and saw the man running off in the distance. “He didn’t have the suit, only the mask, and it was very scary. I didn’t see any weapons, but I didn’t want to wait to see the weapons. My daughter was running faster, but she was stopping just to make sure I was okay,” Toumayan said. Toumayan described this as an area in which the roots of trees lining the streets are very overgrown and crowd the sidewalks. She remembers almost falling several times running away from the clown because she could not see anything. She also remembers how close the clown had gotten to her especially, because her daughter was running much faster with the help of her dog. “The scary part was the mask, the noises he was making, and also because he started running faster trying to catch us,” Toumayan said. She says that people need to know that these clowns are “really out there,” and that people need to be careful. She has been advising her students and her family, because she says that you never know if it is going to be someone fooling around or someone that’s actually dangerous. “My adrenaline was all over the place,” she said. “My main concern was to get my daughter away from this crazy guy. I’m not sure what he would have done if he had really gotten close to us.” So, contrary to the “hoax” theory, and though it may have passed, this clown phenomenon was real. People everywhere, not just in California, are in danger of strange attacks like these all of the time. Perhaps for the better, this unusual episode has reawakened a sense of awareness and the importance of security and safety.