So, you're out at the city park, enjoying the day, when you see a guy wearing a mask and a trench coat (in July) dart out of the woods, look at you, and dart back in again. Isn't that a scream?
That depends on how you look at it. The incident happened at Edmond's Hafer Park recently when an instructor with a women's exercise group called "Operation Boot Camp" called police about a suspicious man.
According to the 911 call, a woman called shortly before 7 a.m. with the report. She spoke excitedly to the operator about the incident. The woman told the operator that a suspicious man seemed to be observing her girl's boot camp.
"He's got a mask on, a trench coat "¦ bulkiness under the (trench coat), he was walking and hiding in the woods. Something's really not right," the woman told the operator.
"Is he a white male?" the operator asked.
"I couldn't tell. He had a mask on," the woman repeated.
Now, now. Reserve judgment. Sure that maybe sounded kinda goofy, but the operator was dealing with a dodgy situation. The operator then asked the woman what color trench coat the man had on.
"(He was wearing) one of those oil "¦ (like) those Australians (wear). He had a red backpack and a mask on his face," the woman answered.
Australians? She might mean a duster, a cotton oilcloth coat that sheds rain, like they wear on long horse sojourns into the outback. They probably don't wear them at Hafer Park that often.
The operator asked for a description of the mask"the woman said she couldn't really tell.
"He kept watching and going back into the woods. And coming " we'd look at him and he'd go back. It was suspicious behavior " a lot of joggers out here. Something's not right," she said.
According to The Edmond Sun, at some point someone identified the mask as a "Scream" mask. Not good. Edvard Munch isn't the most soothing of the Expressionist painters.
Pretty scary, huh? The police put out a warning to area residents.
"We would like to take this time to remind people that if you are biking or running in our parks or neighborhoods, please always have your ID and an emergency number with you as well as a cell phone if possible," police spokeswoman Glynda Chu said.
Several days later, however, police called off the alert. It turns out that two men were making a movie in the area for an upcoming film festival. The whole thing was a costume. They weren't sinister murdering freaks, or even Expressionist painters.
"They saw the news and realized they were the guys in the park and came in this morning to explain what they were doing," Chu said. "We commended them for coming forward to make people aware that there isn't a 'crazy' running around Hafer Park."
