Haverhill Assistant Superintendent of Schools Jared Fulgoni.
Haverhill public school leaders are asking for parents’ help to educate their children on the use of social media related to the so-called “scary clown” phenomenon, including alleged threats by “persons dressed as clowns.”
Haverhill Assistant Superintendent of Schools Jared Fulgoni asked parents, in a post online, to help “ensure the safe operation of our schools” by speaking with their children about the use of social media by individuals to “perpetuate the hoax or cause disruption”
“In speaking with local law enforcement it is suspected that these people may be using social media to perpetuate the hoax and or to cause disruption. While these threats may or may not be real, we take any and all potential threats seriously. We will continue to work closely with the Haverhill Police Department to monitor this situation, and act accordingly to address any threats received, real or perceived,” Fulgoi wrote.
There have been at least a dozen people arrested nationwide of filing false reports with police, making threats or chasing people. A 16-year-old boy, Christian Torres, was stabbed to death near the end of September in Reading, Penn., after either wearing a clown mask or confronting someone wearing one, according to news reports. Police there are sorting out the conflicting claims.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Back in the mid-eighties when my kids were attending J.G. Whittier, there were also reports of a “killer clown” in the woods next to Pentucket Lake. But we did not have social media back then to perpetuate a large-scale hoax.