Clown Tries To Kidnap 1-Year-Old Girl In Concord
CONCORD (CBS SF) -- To Tiffany Martin it seemed like a slow moving nightmare.
A man dressed as a clown was trying to abduct her 1-year-old daughter from a Concord bus stop Wednesday afternoon.
"I thought he was about to get on the bus," she told KPIX 5. "We were sitting there. He was playing with her. I thought he was going to kiss her hand. Instead, he pulled her arm literally and I pulled her arm back and I kicked him."
The man was described as a Caucasian male wearing a blue, curly-haired wig, a blue hat and a polka-dotted, rainbow-colored outfit.
Dispatchers quickly sent police to the bus stop at Willow Pass Road and Waterworld Parkway, but could not locate the man.
The incident came as social media threats associated with "creepy clowns" continued to be directed at schools throughout the Bay Area. To police, the threats are no laughing matter.
"We take this very serious," said Concord Police Chris Blakely. "I mean, this is a total stranger who walked up and grabbed a one year old child and tried to forcefully remove her from her mother's arms."
Concord police spent the day, trying to track down any nearby surveillance video that may be available and also searching nearby trails for any signs of a discarded clown costume.
"You have all these clown stories going around, you're gonna have those copycats who are gonna try to commit crimes and get in clown costumes," Blakely said.
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The number of social media threats toward Bay Area schools by "creepy clowns" has grown after some were reported Monday toward schools in Oakland and Fairfield.
Antioch police were dispatched at 10:57 a.m. Tuesday to Dallas Ranch Middle School on a report of posts saying clowns were going to shoot at the school.
Burlingame police said they were made aware of posts claiming that people dressed as clowns were going to show up at Peninsula schools including some in Burlingame.
BURLINGAME POLICE DEPARTMENT MONITORING SOCIAL MEDIA CLOWN HOAX
Posted by Burlingame Police Department on Wednesday, October 5, 2016
Similar threats have been made in other parts of the country, police said. The threats started on the East Coast and have recently made their way west.
Police in Fairfield were made aware of threats directed toward schools in the Fairfield-Suisun Unified School District on Monday at around 7:45 p.m.
Fairfield police Lt. Rob Lenke said the threats received Monday night on Twitter said, "Be ready, we're coming to your school" and "We're coming to get you."
There were also specific references to killing and kidnapping that might occur at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, Lenke said.
Officials in the Oakland Unified School District told parents Tuesday afternoon that threats had been made toward schools in Oakland, district spokesman John Sasaki said.
Sasaki would not name the schools, but he would say most of the threats were being made on Instagram.
He said that the threats so far have been hoaxes.
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