Insane Clown Posse’s Violent J says the current wave of so-called ‘killer clown’ pranks is not as scary as the threat faced by the band’s fans.
Violent J – aka Joseph Bruce – says the band’s fans, known as The Juggalos, are repeatedly victimised by US law enforcement. They have even officially been labelled a “hybrid gang” by the FBI.
The so-called killer clown craze has spread from the US to Canada, Australia and the UK in recent months and sees people dressed as scary clowns jumping on out unsuspecting members of the public.
In the UK, one boy has been arrested after allegedly being involved in a clown prank and there have been reports of children being chased through parks and streets by weapon-wielding clowns.
Violent J says the craze is nothing new and he remembers a similar wave of incidents in the 1980s. He adds that it is merely distracting people from the dangers of “real clowns” in the US establishment who are infringing on the liberties of citizens.
Writing for Time magazine, Violent J says: “Just know that, despite these sensationalised reports about ‘killer clowns’ wreaking mischief across the nation, there are real clowns out there killing ours and your very rights as an American citizen.
“Everyone once again is seeing so-called ‘killer clowns’ everywhere – popping out of bushes, threatening people on social media and assorted other public pranks.
“Cops have actually arrested a few people this time around, though, because there’s a lot of copycats out there and mass hysteria has a way of making people do stupid shit.
“But as ICP has discovered over the last decade, there’s a whole army of scary, terrifying and dangerous clowns out there in this country trying to suppress the rights of thousands of people to exercise the most basic part of the Declaration of Independence, which evokes the freedom to ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’ The only difference is these clowns don’t wear greasepaint.”
- Pantera covered every song on GNR's Appetite For Destruction
- Watch a man headbanging to Slayer in the middle of Hurricane Matthew
- Opeth's Mikael Akerfeldt: I started a metal gentleman's club
- Why Slipknot's Clown made his new movie Officer Downe
Referring to the recent spate of police shootings on unarmed people in the US, state-sponsored spying on members of the public and racist attacks on Muslim places of worship, Violent J adds: “America has turned into something far more terrifying than Insane Clown Posse’s Dark Carnival.
“These clowns threaten the very fabric on which our nation was supposedly founded upon.”
He adds that ICP fans have suffered at the hands of the “real clowns” since the FBI named The Juggalos in its 2011 National Gang Threat Assessment.
“People simply walking their dogs while wearing an ICP shirt have been stopped, searched and added to the local gang member database—when no crime has been committed,” he says.
“Others have lost their jobs, custody of their kids and been subject to illegal search and seizure.”
