'Creepy clown' threat puts PSD on alert

It's here.

The creepy clown craze — yes, you read that right — sweeping the country, putting communities on edge and schools on heightened alert amid non-credible threats of violence, has arrived in Fort Collins.

Fort Collins Police Services and Poudre School District were notified Wednesday night of a single threat posted on Facebook, involving Poudre High School. The message included emoticons and was "consistent with what has been determined to be a hoax in many other places across the country," FCPS Assistant Chief Jerry Schiager said Thursday morning.

FCPS posted a few additional officers at the school as a precaution.

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Despite the increased security and widespread information debunking most clown-related threats across the country, some local parents were on edge and opted to keep their students home.

"While we don’t have any information that would lead us to believe this is a credible threat, we are working closely with law enforcement in providing additional security and vigilance at our school today," Poudre High School Principal Kathy Mackay wrote in a note to parents Thursday morning. "We take any threat against our school, students and staff members very seriously. We will continue to work diligently on this issue and hope we can avert such false threats causing worry or concern in the future."

Mackay said about 90 percent of students were in attendance Thursday.

Investigators are working to determine who sent the message but believe it might be connected to one from another part of the country.

Mackay also shared the note teachers read to all students Thursday morning.

"Students, you need to realize that social media is powerful. Posts that threaten safety are not a harmless joke. This particular post heightened fears in students, parents and school officials. We will not tolerate people threatening the safety of our school community. Actions like this are subject to school discipline and criminal charges where police see fit."

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Confused about some — or all — of this? You're not alone.

For the past couple years, and increasingly in recent weeks, reports have sprung up of people dressing as clowns and creeping on residents across the country. Why? Good question. The hoaxes often draw from pop culture inspirations, including murderous clowns depicted in the fourth season of the "American Horror Story" TV show and the planned 2017 remake of Stephen King's "It."

In South Carolina, children reported clowns tried to lure them into the woods with money. Similar reports of clowns trying to lure youth into wooded areas have also happened in North Carolina and Georgia. In some cases, the bizarre sightings have resulted in threats of violence at schools — that's what happened earlier this week in Greeley.

Greeley police said a post threatened a shooting on Halloween night. That post went viral and turned into rumor that clowns would carry out shootings at two Greeley schools, prompting officials to boost security and the Weld County District Attorney's Office to issue among the most bizarre news releases in recent history, complete with references to Pennywise, the antagonist clown in King's horror novel.

A 15-year-old female student is believed to have made that post earlier in the week, police said.

Wednesday, police responded to a middle school in Greeley after an 11-year-old student was found to have a BB gun in his backpack. The student allegedly told others that he would wear "clown gloves" when he used the gun — the gun also had an image of a clown on it, police said. The child was booked into the Platte Valley Youth Detention Center on Wednesday afternoon.

“Parents, please talk to your teenagers about this problem,” Weld County District Attorney Michael Rourke said in a statement. “They must realize this isn’t a harmless joke. This ‘joke’ heightened fears in students, parents and school officials. We won’t tolerate people terrorizing our community, and we will charge them where we see fit.”

School safety resources in Poudre School District

PSD has not had any valid school violence threats in recent history. The district received one call that caused evacuation — a bomb threat at Irish Elementary — and two that caused lockouts last school year. PSD averaged two bomb threats each school year for the past four years.

Number of safety resource officers: PSD has 13 contracted school resource officers — 11 from Fort Collins police and two from the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office. SROs are “law enforcement officers, teachers and counselors,” with law enforcement duties taking top priority, Sgt. Matt Johnson said.

Fort Collins Police Services SROs: Located at every PSD high school and mainstream middle school. Middle school SROs also cover feeder system elementary schools.

Larimer County Sheriff’s Office SROs: One stationed at Wellington Middle School, also responsible for Rice and Eyestone elementary schools in Wellington and Timnath and Bethke elementary schools in Timnath. Another SRO is stationed at Cache la Poudre Middle School in Laporte and responsible for Cache La Poudre, Stove Prairie, Livermore and Red Feather elementary schools.

PSD parent protocol: PSD Security Manager Norm Bastian said there are no specific protocols for how and when parents are notified of violent incidents or safety threats at schools. Schools “typically let parents know when they have a lockout, lockdown or evacuation during the day” after an incident occurs because school administrators are busy ensuring the safety of students and staff.

Reporter Jason Pohl covers public safety for the Coloradoan. Follow him on Twitter: @pohl_jason.