Joker Returns

There is something in the wind. The Joker is back, in a couple violent situations. Are copycats going to be in the news?

Jeremy Putnam, 31, of Winchester, Virginia was arrested and charged with wearing a mask in public Friday, March 24, 2017, after he was spotted walking around dressed as the iconic comic book supervillain the Joker, police said.

Police in Winchester -- located about 75 miles northwest of Washington, D.C. -- said the Winchester Emergency Communications Center received "several calls" around 2 p.m. on Friday of a suspicious male wearing a black cape and carrying a sword walking around the city.

Jeremy Putman was charged with wearing a mask in public, a felony that could land him in jail for up to five years, the Winchester Police Department said in a statement.

A week previous, a Joker-obsessed student shoot up a school in France on Thursday, March 16, 2017.

He had posted a bizarre clown-masked video on his Facebook.

Killian Barbey opened fire at the Alexis de Tocqueville lycee (high school) in Grasse, near Cannes, wounding four. He was arrested after injuring headmaster Herve Pizzinat and three pupils, two named Julie, 16, and Akram, 17. The gunman was armed with two revolvers, a hunting rifle and fake grenades and is said to have been bullied. He is the son of far-right French politician Franck Barbey, who is a councillor for the Rally for France party.

Barbey's cover photo on Facebook is a picture of the Joker - the Batman villain - with the caption "give a man a mask and he'll become his true self."

And posted this image of himself too.

Late in March 2017, truly the Joker had returned.