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A man wearing an evil-looking clown mask and wielding a chainsaw was tackled by a resident of Cohoes, New York last week. After a brief scuffle, local police arrived and the clown was arrested on charges of menacing an individual with a “dangerous instrument or deadly weapon.”
“We received a call on Thursday, May 1 at around 2:40 p.m. in the area of 120 Lancaster St. for a fight between two males,” Cohoes Chief of Police Todd Waldin told WTEN News.
“I was walking my mom out to the car,” said local resident Natalie Gwinn. “She was going to pick up my daughter from school, and I saw a dude in a blue sports jersey in a clown mask walking down the street. It was a little weird, but I kind of rolled my eyes and ignored it.”
Security video shows the clown walking down the street in the area just before the police were called about a “fight between two males.”
“He started to look into people’s vehicles. One of the neighbors came out to ask what he was doing,” a local resident told WNYT News.
“I heard a man screaming ‘call the cops’ repeatedly,” Gwinn recalled. “It felt like a few seconds later there were cops coming down Lancaster.”
The security video then shows the local resident holding the clown on the ground after tackling him. Police are then seen surrounding the two men and eventually arresting the clown and taking him to the Albany County Jail.
“Officers arrived and when they separated the two they were able to determine that there was an individual who was wearing a clown mask and had possession of an electric chainsaw,” said Chief Waldin.
Waldin said the clown was charged with three offenses, two for possession of a weapon. “One being the chainsaw. Another one being a metal knuckle knife that he had on his person,” he said. “And then the third one being the fact that he menaced someone with that chainsaw, which is a dangerous instrument or deadly weapon.”
The recent spate of clown arrests is becoming reminiscent of the wave of creepy clowns that terrorized many people in 2016. The clown trouble in New York comes on the heels of three other clown-related arrests, one in Northern Ireland, another in Palm Bay, Florida, and one in Uman, Mexico.
Also, in November of 2024, a Georgia man claimed he was out for a walk when he encountered “a well-dressed man with a clown mask and a tricycle.” The clown, who was also carrying a machete, ended up chasing the man before he could escape.