The Knoxville Police Department will take reports of clown sightings seriously, taking appropriate action against anyone making false reports, threatening the public or disrupting daily activities, according to a KPD news release.

By Travis Dorman of the Knoxville News Sentinel

The latest social media circus hasn't been fun or games this week for East Tennessee students who have received threatening messages from people masquerading as creepy clowns online.

So far, most of the threats have been hollow and the sightings fake, but that hasn't stopped the spread of rumors.

Authorities arrested one Claiborne County girl Wednesday on charges of sending threatening text and Facebook messages to Cumberland Gap High School students, saying "not to come to school tomorrow, clowns are coming to your school just to give you a heads up we are shooting it up," according to a news release from the Claiborne County Sheriff's Office.

Many students didn't attend school on Wednesday due to the threats, the release states, and several left after hearing the rumors.

"We take all threats seriously and will not permit students or anyone else to interrupt the education of our children. We will find them and prosecute them," Claiborne County Sheriff David Ray said.

Reports of clown sightings began in South Carolina in August and have since spread across the Southeast, scaring children, teenagers and parents while frustrating police left to juggle countless false reports. Authorities have been forced to perform a balancing act, walking a tightrope between dismissing clown-related calls as smoke and mirrors and treating them seriously as potential threats.

More often than not, the clowns have vanished before police arrived on the scene. In Coffee County, for example, authorities responded Monday to a report of a teenager being cut by a knife-wielding clown but found zero clowns, the Nashville Tennessean reported. Coffee County Sheriff Steve Graves has asked residents not to dress up as clowns for Halloween this year.

"People in Tennessee carry guns, and somebody jumping out and scaring someone is subject to getting shot," he told the Tennessean.

Some people have "gone so far as to 'stage' pictures in clown suits in an attempt to add credibility to their claims," according to a Knoxville Police Department news release.

KPD officers will take threats seriously and investigate any reported sightings, and will also "take appropriate action" against those making false reports, threatening the public or "disrupting the daily activities of businesses, schools and public spaces," according to the release.

Cumberland Gap isn't the first Tennessee school where activities have been disrupted by online threats.

Two Red Bank Middle School students were charged with disorderly conduct after making social media posts on Tuesday claiming a clown would shoot up the schools, the Chattanooga Times Free Press reported. Both schools were open as normal Wednesday after authorities found "no credible evidence that a shooting would actually occur."

In Knoxville, Austin-East Magnet High School was placed on a "soft lockdown" Tuesday due to "threats that have been made on social media," Knox County Schools spokeswoman Carly Harrington said. She would not "confirm nor deny" whether the lockdown, which began at 10:30 a.m. and continued through the school day, was clown-related.

"We're not tying this to any clowns," she said.

Pamela Campbell-Bost, whose son attends Austin-East, said she alerted the administration of threatening messages where clowns "said they were coming to Austin-East to kill all the 'n-words.' "

After someone spotted a sinister-looking clown across the street from the high school, the principal made the decision to put the school on lockdown, Campbell-Bost said.

"I don't think the schools were taking this seriously at first," she said. "They thought it was just some kids playing, but once they started making death threats, then they started taking it more seriously."

Knoxville resident Stephanie White said she filed a report with the Knox County Sheriff's Office on Monday after her son and his teammate on the Knoxville Catholic High School football team received threatening clown-related messages. KCSO detectives have taken her son's cellphone and are tracking the text messages, White said.