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Cops Urge Caution With Clown, Police Halloween Costumes

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) – While kids are gearing up for the Halloween festivities, some people are concerned over costumes surfacing.

"We're trying to keep away from putting people in costumes that may get them in trouble," said Luke Miller, communications manager at Goodwill.

From rack to rack at Goodwill, it's that time of year kids get to morph into their favorite super heroes.

"I love that the Flash can go really fast and that the super Hulk has super strength," said Logan Atlee of Sacramento.

Some costumes look just like the real thing including police uniforms and badges.

"This day in age there's a lot of things you can buy online," said Officer Matthew McPhail with Sac PD.

You can buy them at many costume stores too, which McPhail said is concerning for them, but perfectly legal.

"We would encourage you to not make commands or issue orders to people or treat other people as if you are an officer," he said.

If you do that, you'll be charged with impersonating a police officer. Also, if you have a toy gun, it must have a colorful tip.

"It's supposed to have obvious markings on it that would make it distinguishable as a toy as opposed to a legitimate fire arm," he said.

Goodwill sells some great costumes, but they say not the real deal.

"We never sell anything that has official insignia or badges on it," said Miller.

They're also not selling clown costumes this year.

"We're trying to keep away from putting people in costumes that may get them in trouble or perceived badly in the community," he said.

Even 11-year-old Logan Atlee knows clowns are off limits.

"There's been a lot of talk about them threatening and terrorizing schools and stuff," he said.

Logan's mother said times are changing and therefor so are the Halloween house rules.

"Before we were scared about something happening to the candy, now we're scared about the trick or treating out there being a part of it," said Rasheral Despain, Logan's mom.

Goodwill takes all sorts of donations, even old uniforms, but if it has a real badge or police emblem, they won't sell it.

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