All the world loves a clown — except these cops

By at 25 February, 2010, 7:50 am

It was Matthew Lopez’s 19th birthday. The teen was wearing a clown mask with bright red-orange hair as he walked down a Tampa street with another person. A cop spotted Lopez and began to tail him, so Lopez and the other person headed down a wooded path and tried to flee. But the cops caught up with them. They charged Lopez with the somewhat arcane offense of wearing a mask or hood on a public road, as well as the more mundane crime of obstructing or resisting an officer without violence, reports the Tampa Tribune . The charge is based on a 1951

law designed to combat the Ku Klux Klan, part of the section of Florida’s statutes dealing with criminal anarchy and treason. It appears that the Tampa police are well-versed on this obscure mask law. In 2008, they arrested another man after he was spotted wearing a Batman mask in Ybor City. But a judge dismissed the charges against the Caped Crusader. It is a birthday that Lopez will surely remember. But who are the real clowns? Photo: Matthew Lopez / The Tampa Tribune More FloriDUH

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All the world loves a clown — except these cops

Categories : Florida | Tampa




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