Threat made against St. Clare Seafood Festival in Hancock County

What was meant to be an exciting start to the fair season ended up being quite a scare for St. Clare Festivalgoers.

Last weekend, over 5,000 people gathered at St. Clare Catholic Church for the fun-filled St. Clare Seafood Festival. Seafood Festival Chairman John Pucheu said, “It’s a community function. We really push family orientation here, and the funds that we raise, a part of it goes to subsidize children going to a catholic school and the rest of it is used here for church infrastructure repairs.”

The church has held their annual St. Clare seafood festival for over 40 years and is normally topped off with a huge firework show, but this year was different due to a major threat. Waveland Police Investigator Edward Hursey said, “Our officers were already out working the festival and they had heard through the crowd that somebody had potentially made a social media threat about shots possibly being fired when the fireworks went off, so they spoke with the personnel with the church and the church decided to cancel the fireworks.”

After praying about the circumstance, Pucheu made the decision to cancel the fireworks and notified the crowd about the potential threat.

With the help of law enforcement, all festival goers were escorted off of the church property in a calm and orderly fashion. Rev. Jacob-Matthew Smith said, “Making that decision to cancel the fireworks show, that was our message to them that we care more about your life than we do a single firework. It impacts everybody, not just us here at St. Clare, but all the people who believe in these kinds of get-togethers, and now they’re going to have to start worrying about whether or not they want to come out and support them.”

The Waveland Police Station is asking for your assistance to help them identify the individuals that made the threat.

If you think you have any information that may be helpful to the investigation, please call the police department at 228-467-3669.

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