The day after increasing police presence at Ansonia schools over threatening creepy clown messages on Instagram, police have arrested two 13-year-old girls. Police said they also made a third arrest in an unrelated, but similar case.
On Tuesday, Ansonia police started investigating posts that were directed at the Ansonia School system on Tuesday and threatened to shoot up the middle school, then go shoot up the high school.
Investigators identified two suspects and took them into custody.
The two girls have been charged with first-degree threatening, breach of peace in the second degree, conspiracy to commit threatening in the first degree and breach of peace in the second degree.
Police said they did not believe the threats were credible, but they added extra police presence at the schools today.
On Tuesday, Naugatuck police arrested two teenage girls in connection with threatening clown social media posts and Ansonia polices said these are not the same girls charged in their incident.
Various U.S. towns have been stepping up patrols as the creepy clown craze stays steady, but Ansonia police are not associating the local case with what’s happening nationally.
In August, children in South Carolina reported seeing multiple clowns lurking in the woods and showing them money.
Twelve people were arrested across Georgia, Alabama and Virginia in the past two weeks for making false reports of clown threats or chasing people while costumed, authorities said on various county police Facebook posts, NBC News reports.
In Connecticut, new laws make it a class C felony to make threats with the intent to cause an evacuation of a school and a conviction could lead to a prison sentence of one to 10 years and a $10,000 fine.
Sightings and hoaxes have spread to more than a dozen states, including New York, Maryland and Pennsylvania in September and have led to elementary, middle schools and high schools being shut down in Ohio and added police patrols in Alabama, Florida and Georgia, according to NBC News.
On Monday, two teens in New Jersey were arrested for allegedly making threatening social media posts about clown attacks at students and residents in the town. Another 13-year-old girl, on the same day, was posting threatening comment with a clown account.
The in the Ansonia incident have been referred to juvenile court.