Sword-Wielding Man Dressed as The Joker Arrested in Virginia

Winchester, Virginia gets it's very own 'Florida Man' headline after a Joker impersonator decided to roam the streets with a sword.

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Virginia Police are issuing community reminders after the latest in a series of arrests of masked adults resulted in the arrest of a man roaming the streets in a full Joker costume while wielding a sword. Winchester, Virginia Police arrested 31-year-old Jeremy Putnam Friday. He was in full face makeup resembling the late Heath Ledger’s character from 2008’s The Dark Knight.

In addition to caked-on white foundation, a red, faux carved smile and dyed green hair, Putnam was toting a rather visible sword. For those of you keeping track of Virginia’s weapons laws, it would seem the interpretation of Putnam’s makeup as a “mask” was the more punishable offense here and not the long-bladed instrument of death he was carrying.

Image via Winchester Police

According to Virginia Code 18.2-422:  “It shall be unlawful for any person over 16 years of age, with the intent to conceal his identity, wear any mask, hood, or other device, whereby a substantial portion of the face is hidden or covered, so as to conceal the identity of the wearer to be or appear in any public place, or upon any private property in this Commonwealth, without first having obtained from the owner or tenant thereof consent to do so in writing.”

There’s a bit of room for interpretation as it regards Virginia Code 18.2-311, which forbids the possession or selling of “any blackjack, brass or metal knucks, any disc of whatever configuration having at least two points or pointed blades which is designed to be thrown or propelled and which may be known as a throwing star or oriental dart, switchblade knife, ballistic knife.”

The distinction between a detachable blade propelled by a spring-operated mechanism versus a sword is something Putnam’s lawyer can haggle over, since he is being held at the Northwestern Regional Adult Detention Center under a $2,000 secured bond.

The moral of the story here is if you walk around town carrying a sword while dressed as a comic book villain, the police will probably arrest you. That and apparently, Virginia’s mask laws are more narrowly defined than the state’s weapons statutes on carrying a sword.

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