A 28-year-old man called police around 3:55 a.m. Tuesday from the 200 block of Tillman Avenue in Greenville. The man said he was chased down Broadway Street by two people dressed as clowns.
Butts said the alleged victim happened to have a baseball bat with him. The victim said he was hit in the neck and side and his baseball bat was stolen.
The suspects are described as having painted white faces. One suspect may have been bald with a beard and black diamonds painted around both eyes. The other clown suspect may have had long hair.
Butts said police checked the area and “didn’t find anyone clowning around.”
The victim refused medical treatment and did not have any obvious injuries, Butts said.
The Darke County Sheriff’s Office has received no complaints of clown encounters, but the public is encouraged to call police to report strange activity.
FIRST REPORT
You’ve likely heard over the past month disturbing reports of creepy clowns trying to lure kids in to wooded areas in other states.
The reports are getting closer to Ohio, according to our news partner WCPO in Cincinnati.
This week, several complaints about people dressed as clowns scaring people came in to police departments in Glasgow and Bowling Green Kentucky, according to WCPO.
In the last two days, according to WCPO, reports of clowns scaring children have been made in Pennsylvania and Alabama too.
Last month, multiple reports were made in South Carolina.
Just today, our newsroom here in Dayton received social media posts from concerned followers about a group of clowns possibly travelling to the Columbus and Dayton areas.
We could not confirm those reports.
WSAZ-TV did report Friday that a clown holding an axe, staring at bystanders and knocking on doors was spotted in Portsmouth, Ohio.
Police there warned anyone caught doing this could be arrested for inducing panic or disorderly conduct.
They suggested anyone who sees a clown acting out should contact their local police department.
Clown sightings also reported in Georgia
Our sister newsroom, the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, has also reported on creepy clown sightings in Georgia. Here is their recent report.
Creepy clown incidents continue in and near Georgia, with one school district sending hundreds of students home early Wednesday.
More than 300 students were checked out of a high school and about 600 were let out of an elementary school in Lee County, Ala., the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer reported.
Officials acted after learning of a social media post in which a user posing as a clown threatened to bring a firearm to the schools and “blow it up,” the paper reported.
Lee County Sheriff Jay Jones said there’s no evidence that the threat was credible, but also said, “Our No. 1 priority is the safety of the children; No. 2 is to apprehend the individual or individuals responsible for this post,” the paper reported.
Lee County, Ala., is about 105 miles southwest of Atlanta.
On Tuesday in Athens, an 11-year-old student was arrested for bringing to school a knife that she said was needed to fend off so-called clowns, the Athens Banner-Herald reported.
The girl was taken by the principal to the office of the middle school, where she was questioned by a police officer, according to the report.
“She said that the reason she had the knife was for protection for her and her family because she had heard the stories about clowns jumping out of the woods and attacking children,” the officer wrote in a report.
In northwest Georgia, police in Fort Oglethorpe have received complaints of suspicious people dressed as clowns frightening area residents, the Northwest Georgia Daily News reported.
In one case, police said a person dressed as a creepy clown and wielding what appeared to be a knife allegedly chased a complainant’s 17-year-old daughter and 11-year-old niece from a convenience store lot to their apartment, the paper reported.
Fort Oglethorpe is about 110 miles northwest of Atlanta..