ROCKWALL, Texas – Police arrested a Texas 13-year-old who posed as a killer clown on social media and threatened to shoot students at her school, including herself.

Police did not identify the Utley Middle School Student, but said the girl is charged with making a terroristic threat after she posted a threat against specific students at the school, though the teen claimed the prank was intended to ward off actual creepy clowns, Fox 4 reports.

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“Supposedly the clown was going to show up to Utley Middle School yesterday around 12:30 and was going to take care of people on that hit list,” Rockwall Police Sgt. Jeff Welch told the news site. “She did seem remorseful and taken aback that she caused this much trouble and anxiety in the community.”

The Rockwall teen is one of several Texas students facing criminal charges for recent online clown-related threats, arrests that are part of a nationwide epidemic of creepy clowns terrorizing children online and in person.

Police increased patrols at Frisco’s Reedy High School and Pearson Middle School Wednesday after someone using the screen name friscotexaskillersclowns posted an image to social media of a bloody knife with the message “All my friends at Reedy high school, say Good bye!” accompanied by emojis, the Dallas Morning News reports.

A 16-year-old female student at Castleberry High School in River Oaks was arrested Tuesday for a clown threat prank to Twitter on Sunday.

“I have decided to shoot up Castleberry High School we are aware that students are not having school on Monday so we will be showing up some day this week stay aware,” the post read.

“It has to be treated as a serious matter,” River Oaks Police Lt. Chuck Stewart told Fox 4. “(The student) deleted her account immediately after sending the tweet. And at that point, her friend had already passed it out to everybody who passed it out to all their friends, and it pretty much went viral at that point.”

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In that case, the student told her parents what she did and they contacted police and the Castleberry principal, and she has not yet been charged with a crime.

In Mansfield, Texas, a 14-year-old boy was arrested and lodged in Tarrant County Juvenile Detention Center over a creepy clown threat using the Twitter persona “MTX Killer Clown,” which has since been deactivated, Fox 4 reports.

In recent weeks, police have fielded clown-related threats or sightings in Rhode Island, Texas, Virginia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, California, Ohio, Tennessee, Alabama, New York, and other places, EAGnews reports.

While many reports were unsubstantiated, others have involved physical confrontations with creepy clowns.

A man dressed in a striped clown outfit, white face, black eyes, and green wig grabbed a student outside of an on-campus dorm at Texas State University on Monday, The Austin American-Statesman reports.

Two weeks ago in Tennessee, a Coffee County student told sheriff Steve Graves that a creepy clown came out of a Summitville woods, slashed him on the arm, and ran away.

“An individual dressed in a red hoodie and a clown mask came running at him,” Graves told WTVF. “It’s people who have probably seen this on social media and thinks it’s funny.”

The Reading, Ohio school district closed schools on Friday after two clown related incidents within hours of each other: police arrested a local junior high student for making creepy clown threats online and a woman reported a clown grabbed her by the neck on her porch, according to WCPO.

Students have also been chased from school bus stops by creepy clowns waiving weapons.