By Tim Binnall
A Florida landscaper got quite the fright when a man wearing a jester costume and wielding a foot-long dagger allegedly threatened him for making too much noise. The bizarre incident reportedly occurred last Thursday afternoon as Brian Hanson was mowing a lawn in St. Petersburg. His normally routine workday took a troubling and strange turn when, police say, a man dressed as a jester emerged from a nearby home, fetched a dagger from a car, and then began stalking towards the stunned landscaper.
As the angry clown, later identified as Anthony Marzola, approached the landscaper, he shouted at him about the noise he was making. Understandably concerned, Hanson deftly maneuvered his lawnmower to shield himself from the dagger-wielding jester, who eventually returned to his house presumably under the impression that he had gotten his message across. However, the silence that subsequently fell upon the neighborhood came about because Hanson had stopped working to report the incident to the police.
Cops arriving on the scene arrested Marzola, who they noted was "wearing a full ‘jester’ costume during the incident," and at the time he was taken into custody. The menacing clown has since been charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. As for why Marzola was decked out in the odd costume on a seemingly random Thursday afternoon, it is assumed that his unusual attire was connected to his business, a smoke shop called Psychedelic Jester. Given the legal trouble he now faces, one imagines that the confrontational clown wishes he had just gone into work rather than challenge Hanson about the noise.