DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... Muslim teen Ahmed Mohamed creates clock, shows teachers, gets arrested

Muslim teen Ahmed Mohamed creates clock, shows teachers, gets arrested

(CNN)When Ahmed Mohamed went to his high school in Irving, Texas, Monday, he was so excited. A teenager with dreams of becoming an engineer, he wanted to show his teacher the digital clock he'd made from a pencil case.

The 14-year-old's day ended not with praise, but punishment, after the school called police and he was arrested.

"I built a clock to impress my teacher but when I showed it to her, she thought it was a threat to her," Ahmed told reporters Wednesday. "It was really sad that she took the wrong impression of it."

Ahmed talked to the media gathered on his front yard and appeared to wear the same NASA T-shirt he had on in a picture taken as he was being arrested. In the image, he looks confused and upset as he's being led out of school in handcuffs.

"They arrested me and they told me that I committed the crime of a hoax bomb, a fake bomb," the freshman later explained to WFAA after authorities released him.

Irving Police spokesman Officer James McLellan told the station, "We attempted to question the juvenile about what it was and he would simply only tell us that it was a clock."

The teenager did that because, well, it was a clock, he said.

On Wednesday, police announced the teen will not be charged.

Chief Larry Boyd said Ahmed should have been "forthcoming" by going beyond the description that what he made was a clock. But Boyd said authorities determined that the teenager did not intend to alarm anyone and the device, which the chief called "a homemade experiment," was innocuous.

Ahmed, who aspires to go to MIT, said he was pleased the charges were dropped and not bothered that police didn't apologize for arresting him. After he said he was interrogated by police without an attorney present, his lawyer, Linda Moreno, told reporters they wouldn't answer any more questions about the legal process.

Ahmed is suspended until Thursday, he said, but is thinking about transferring to another high school.

Social media reacts

Outrage over the incident -- with many saying the student was profiled because he's Muslim -- spread on social media as #IStandWithAhmed started trending worldwide on Twitter with more than 100,000 tweets Tuesday morning. The school's Facebook page is roiling with sharp criticism of the way the teen was treated, and the hashtag #engineersforahmed is gaining popularity.

President Barack Obama, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and thousands of others are showing support for Ahmed.

"Cool clock, Ahmed," Obama tweeted. "Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It's what makes America great."

The President would like the teen to join him and other scientists next month for the White House's annual Astronomy Night, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Wednesday.

Ahmed said Wednesday he was going to the White House.

Clinton tweeted that "assumptions don't keep us safe" and urged the teenager to "keep building."

"I think this wouldn't even be a question if his name wasn't Ahmed Mohamed," said Alia Salem of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "He is an excited kid who is very bright and wants to share it with his teachers."

Many criticized the school on Facebook. Its creator, Mark Zuckerberg, posted his support.

"Having the skill and ambition to build something cool should lead to applause, not arrest. The future belongs to people like Ahmed," Zuckerberg wrote. "Ahmed, if you ever want to come by Facebook, I'd love to meet you. Keep building."

Kevin McKinney posted, "How did a bunch of complete idiots end up accidentally running a school? Were you all yanked out of a zoo and given paychecks? Learning centers are for teaching ... not for ruining innocent people's lives with your racism and pathetic stupidity! ... "This kid is destined to be something great if the dimwits of Irving don't ruin him first."

Mocking Irving Schools' motto, Bill Cain wrote: "'Where children come first' ... to jail in handcuffs. Way to go, Irving."

Chance Williams posted, "Ahmed Mohamed deserves a public apology from you, the school administrators, police, and teachers involved in his arrest. I hope he sues, and the school district has to pay for his college education."

Teen's father saw son surrounded by police

Texas law stipulates that a person who commits a hoax bomb offense is one who "knowingly manufactures, sells, purchases, transports, or possesses a hoax bomb with intent to use" it or intentionally causes alarm or reaction.

Ahmed's father, Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed, who immigrated from Sudan and has twice run for that country's presidency, told CNN Wednesday that he was upset the school did not contact him immediately to tell him about the situation.

The first he heard of it was when he received a call from police, who said his son was being charged with having a hoax bomb, Mohamed said.

He rushed to the police station, where he saw his son "surrounded by five police and he was handcuffed," the father said. Ahmed told his father he'd asked to phone him but the police told him he could not because he was under arrest, Mohamed said.

"I asked if I could talk to or speak to my son and they told me, 'No, not right now' because they were taking his fingerprints and asking him questions," Mohamed said. "I asked if I could see the thing they were calling a bomb. The police never let me even see it but I knew what my son brought to school. It was an alarm clock that he made. He wakes up with it most mornings. ..."

Police are holding the clock as evidence, Mohamed said.

A reporter at a news conference Wednesday asked Chief Boyd about the allegations that Ahmed was told he could not call his father and was interrogated alone for some time at the station.

"I'm not aware of that," the chief said, adding that the incident isn't being investigated.

Boyd was also asked if the teen's religious or ethnic identity played a role in how he was treated. The chief said it did not, and he praised the department's relationship with Irving's Muslim community.

However, he said, "We live in an age where you can't take things like that to school."

'People think Muslims are terrorists'

"My son is a very brilliant boy," Mohamed said. "We need people like him in this country."

The teen has never been in trouble, the father said, saying he thinks this is a case of Islamophobia. "My son's name is Mohamed -- people just think Muslims are terrorists but we are peaceful, we are not that way."

"We live in the land of opportunity to grow and help and the people who did this to my son, they do not see him that way," Mohamed continued. "My son said over and over that this was an alarm clock and my son only brought it to school to ask for help from his teachers, to show that he can do this amazing thing and maybe get appreciation and to show him (he can become) something bigger in the world -- an inventor."

Mohamed said it wasn't until after the fact that he received a call and an email from the school, telling him about Ahmed's arrest and informing him that his son had been suspended for three days.

The father and others were meeting Wednesday with attorneys to decide what steps, if any, they might take next, Mohamed said.

At the Wednesday news conference, a spokeswoman for the Irving Independent School District told reporters that the way the teen's experience has been described in media reports is "unbalanced."

She declined to explain why, citing the need to protect a student's privacy.

The statement she made was posted on the district's site Wednesday. When the family gives written permission to discuss the incident, the school will offer more information, she said.

Earlier in the day, MacArthur High School provided a statement to CNN in which it said it was cooperating with authorities and said privacy laws prohibited it from sharing details about student discipline. "We can assure everyone that school administrators are handling the situation in accordance with the Irving ISD Student Code of Conduct and applicable laws."

Mohamed isn't sure if his son will go back to school Thursday. He's afraid the police will keep his invention and he's worried about his son being called names.

But he's happy about the widespread outpouring of support. His family started the hashtag #Thankyouforstandingwithme.

"It gives him hope," the teen's father said. "Right now he is trying to just stay positive and is listening to the news about him and reading about people's comments him on social media. It's really too much for him to take in right now, but long term it will be good for him. He doesn't want to show he is a victim."

It was an English teacher who got spooked and reported Ahmed to the principal, the police said.

"We always ask our students and staff to immediately report if they observe any suspicious items and/or suspicious behavior," the school's statement reads. "If something is out of the ordinary, the information should be reported immediately to a school administrator and/or the police so it can be addressed right away. We will always take necessary precautions to protect our students and keep our school community as safe as possible."

A reporter spoke with the boy in his bedroom, which is full of equipment that allows him to tinker and create.

"Here in high school, none of the teachers know what I can do," Ahmed told the paper while he soldered metal and played around with a cable.

A middle school robotics club member, the teen has won awards for his inventions.

He recalled showing one teacher the clock and her telling him that she thought it was "nice" but he shouldn't show other instructors, according to the paper. The teen put the clock in his bookbag but an alarm beeped in the middle of sixth period and Ahmed showed the teacher what he had, the newspaper reported.

"She was like, it looks like a bomb," he said.

"I told her, 'It doesn't look like a bomb to me.'"

When Ahmed was called out of class, he said he was brought into a room with four police officers, one of whom said, "Yup. That's who I thought it was."

Ahmed told the Dallas Morning News that he felt aware of what he looked like and his name as the officers fired questions at him.

He recalled that one officer said to him, "So you tried to make a bomb?"

He disputed that and kept telling them he'd created a clock.

Meanwhile, the teen's defenders continue to slam the school and police.

"I really hope you guys are absolutely ashamed for possibly ruining the ingenuity of one bright kid who made a CLOCK for crying out loud. What kind of education does your professors have?" David Velez wrote on the school's Facebook page. "It sounds like they are the ones that need to be going back to school!"

"Shame on your school and its administration for arresting Ahmed Mohamed," wrote Jillian York. "Way to stifle a kid's creativity and energy. I hope you're all replaced with compassionate, non-racist, administrators and teachers."

Among things said by the Police Officer, "I honestly don't know if it's real or not. I arrested him because this seems typical."

/purp

Wow. The Facebook posters said it best..
I bet if this was a white good old boy named Billy Bob with cow dung on his boots who invented a clock (lol!), it wouldn't have been a problem.

Those cops are frikking stupid. Like, uber retarded.

Sad story turned good. I hope this young man has fun at the White House and NASA and MIT and wherever else he visits in the next few weeks.

Did you see the clock? I don't care if this kid came from Tibet and dressed like the Dalai Lama, that thing was getting checked out. I don't agree with them arresting him, but he should have been detained until he was checked out. The last 3 or 4 mass killings were by 'Billy Bobs', so they should be checked out too.

Fair enough and I understand these are dangerous times. But to cuff him and cart him off to jail? Not very bright.

He was arrested and suspended from school for three days. That's not being "checked out". "Checking him out" would entail a process that didn't result in a knee-jerk arrest and suspension from class. The police handcuffed and perp walked him in front of his classmates. That's not "checking something out". That's potentially causing an impressionable young man to believe that the world is a scary and stupid place, for no valid reason. They took his mugshot. That's insane.

Yes. I read the article. I was stating how things should have been handled.

You'd think they would have praised him for arming himself for protection against a shooter entering the school.

I think the mayor had some kind of controversial statement about how Muslims are trying to kill us.

This is the very face of xenophobia. Not very pretty, is it?

Invariably, those who are the most fearful and most watchful become the ones to be feared the most. The mistrust grows out of control to the point that any action they take is justified to them.

That's what makes them scarier than the boogeymen they are after. Now, American citizens are locking up other (innocent) American citizens in the name of public safety.

This right here.... is how the real terrorists win. Not so much through recruitment, but through our mistrust and suspicion of our own. They can sit back for months/years on end, while we suspect everyone around us. Eventually, fear and mistrust become part of the everyday package that we call daily life. Then, we start doing crap like this to ourselves. And they don't have to do a damn thing.

This was handled stupidly from the very start through the very finish. And it's a prime example of the very thing that actually CREATES a new terrorist where one didn't previously exist.

A 14 year old science geek. In handcuffs at the police station. For expanding his knowledge/experience, and wanting to share it with his mentors.

Sometimes, we really are stupid enough for ridicule. This was one of those times.

[quote]A 14 year old science geek. In handcuffs at the police station. For expanding his knowledge/experience, and wanting to share it with his mentors.

Sometimes, we really are stupid enough for ridicule. This was one of those times.
/quote]

Yeah, but it probably upped his status with the ladies!

I get your joke. I really do. And maybe he will get some attention after this. Cute girls love bad boys and all...

However, all the 'slap & tickle' he might get will never erase the memory of what these people did to him. Kid was suspended from school without doing anything wrong at all. He was yanked from class, profiled, detained, handcuffed, hauled to the local precinct, and mug-shot. All of this happened to him because of other peoples' FEAR.

I think it's very cool the way this story eventually played out, but not every kid who finds himself in a situation like this is going to get a visit to the White House... and that's what scares me so much about this episode.

It really was a clever joke, but it just caught me in a serious mood tonight. Not your fault, and I'm not even trying to lecture you. I'm just venting some frustration because we ALWAYS seem to get to this point as a species. We never learn, and we never seem to get much better from one generation to the next.

If the current atmosphere of social angst and xenophobia continues, I see a lot more of this happening in the coming years. And sooner or later, our own paranoia is going to create the very monster we fear: The Home-Grown Terrorist.

Ted, this is truly some dark and disturbing stuff, especially when you look at where it comes from. An innocent kid lost his innocence today... and it's the fault of every single adult who had a hand in this story.

If I had experienced something like this in 1970, along with all the other slights, mistrust, low expectations and universal suspicion that followed me throughout 'teenhood,' there's a 35/65 chance it would've pushed me toward becoming a Black Panther when I finally got onto a college campus, even though I had NO 'enemies' at all... when I was 14. Those are NOT encouraging numbers. I really was that angry back then... and it wouldn't have taken much to push me to a leather trench coat, black beret, a clenched fist in my left hand/a semi-auto in my right.

_____________________


This is the [stuff] that scares me most about us. Germany did it to the Jews in 1938. We did it to our own immigrant citizens after Pearl Harbor. This sort of 'Ethnic/Social Cleansing' is a recurring theme throughout history... and it always ends up on the "bad" side of every nation's historic ledger. Always. Every time, a deficit... NEVER an asset. Don't think: "current events." Think: Historical context, viewed by Millennium," and I think you'll see what I mean.

If we once again allow ourselves to be as stupid as those who came before us, we'll make things worse for ourselves, just like every time before.

This kid (let's call him "Kid #1" ) made a clock. From scraps. And was rewarded with school suspension, detention, police cars, handcuffs.... and processing at Central Booking. Kid #1 miraculously gets internet traction, a Presidential pardon... and an invitation to 1600 Penn. Feel-good 'Movie of the Week' material.

Kid #2 makes a clock. Gets busted. Doesn't get national coverage or a trip to DC. Now he's in The System. At 14 years of age. Because all the adults around him lost their collective fkkn' minds on a 'fateful day of mass stupidity,' every single thing he does from now on is subject to police intervention... because he now is "in the system."

Kid #2 didn't get a call from the office of the POTUS. Didn't become a '15-minute internet celeb.' Kid #2 got hassled, jacked-up, and messed-with because he's now a "criminal in the system." But he still has the skills that compelled him to build that clock for his teachers... and now, he's pissed off at the world that screwed him over, when he was just 14- and still innocent. "Time to make some mf'ers pay, yo-"

Which scenario seems more likely to play out, given what we know of the world these days?

_____________________

Most of the time, Mankind builds for himself the very demons that torture Him- from His own nightmares and irrational fears. And then, He blames the demon for His sleepless nights.

Loved the joke- but this really ain't no 'laughing matter.'

.02,
Clem

It really upped his status with people who have intelligence. Those who posted their reactions have encouraged him to continue and someday work at the type of jobs they have.

Not sure that being arrested and handcuffed in front of your peers, taken to the police station and being interrogate is a desirable way to advertise your skills if you're 14.

It's a representation of our black-n-white(not race related) rule system, where common sense and situation variables are thrown out to ensure everyone gets the same punishment/treatment, regardless of intent or reality.

AMEN

Always interesting to see which happenings Obama decides to chime in on, and which he does not.

Maybe he should have built a pressure cooker from a metal bucket?

J/C ...... If he is invited to bring his clock to the White House .... I bet that the Secret Service will want to have a very close look at it before he gets in to see the President. If they see something even remotely suspicious, how quickly does anyone think they would have this kid in jail?

Yes it did Clem. And this fear is perpetuated every day all around us... on the news, splashing all over Facebook and social media, and for a lot of people, in the associations they have that are designed to build on, not mitigate, that fear.

At a time when the world is smaller than ever, at a time when it's so much easier to meet and enjoy the company of such a wide variety of people, many seem to be going in the other direction, restricting the bubble in which they live.. Very sad really.

And perhaps the saddest thing about this whole story, these are the teachers and the administrators that we are expecting to be good role models for our kids in the areas of tolerance and acceptance...

There's nothing the least bit suspicious in that clock.. It's what bad "movie bombs" look like I guess - but it's just a couple loose wires hooked up to a battery and a processor. We used to build things like this all the time in classes.

Where exactly is the explosive in this thing?

Only in Texas.....

Oh, and SC, AL, & MS.

'Merica!

Yeah, that's what I was thinking too. Anyone surprised this happened in Texas, given the general mentality of people there like the cop who said "Yup. That's who I thought it was"?

Seeing the picture of his "clock", I don't blame the teacher for alerting authorities.

The technical name is a bombless Bomb timer. Most people refer to them as clocks for short.

This is the society we are creating as we give up our freedoms and let government get bigger and bigger.

Not sure where the explosive is and why the police continued to coerce him to admit he was wanting to build a bomb.

Can you point out which part looks like an explosive, because it looks like a clock to me.

I can understand a teacher being apprehensive because I've seen a lot of clocks, and that looks nothing like a clock... and I also will admit, I don't know what a bomb timer is supposed to look like. All I know about bomb timers is that they are usually digital and the final 6 seconds of the countdown takes 5 minutes in a movie... a lot of stuff gets done in that final 6 seconds...

But when taken in context, the kid VOLUNTARILY showed it to the teacher and said it was a clock. It's what happened next that is the most concerning, the reaction of the authorities...

so nobody is gonna comment that a certified science teacher doesn't know what the hell they're looking at?

You think a high school science teacher should be able to immediately tell the difference between a homemade bomb timer and a homemade clock? I'm guessing they would look remarkably similar.

Why is "clock" in quotation marks, when that is, in fact, what it is.

Because "I" felt like putting it that way.

Because it doesn't "look" like a clock.

Yeah I mean, throw all the politically correct crap people try to hold oh so dear to their hearts away. I can tell you, even if he was a buddy, I wouldn't be able to determine that's a clock upon looking at it.

Jz everything has to be prejudice, racism or something else these days. I can likely safely say I'd had notified someone too. This day and age, with that sort of thing, it's better to be safe than sorry and just hope the person understands the "why" behind it.

That isn't what has so many ppl up in arms, LB... it's the way he was treated every step of the way.

Kid was handcuffed, hauled off to jail in front of his classmates, put through intake processing, fingerprinted and grilled by detectives to say the device was a bomb instead of a clock.

WTF?

At any point in this entire fiasco, someone could have just LOOKED at the damn thing and determined that it wasn't an IED. Instead, every single adult went all "Chicken Little," and put this kid through hell- for hours.

It doesn't even have to be about race/ethnicity to be deplorable... and I've already dealt with the "why" in a previous post.

Everyone who dealt with this kid was an asshat, from the engineering teacher who advised him to not show the clock (then apparently kept his mouth shut while the kid was getting railroaded), to the cops who pressured him to admit he was a terrorist.

You may be willing to pass this ugliness off as "folks just being careful," but to me, it represents a perfect storm of some of the worst human traits we have.


.02

No offense but would you be willing to investigate, look at or fiddle with something like that?

I'm just a programmer. Biggest bomb I ever made was taping together a bunch of firecrackers. I'd move away from that device as opposed to trying to determine what it is and possibly triggering it.

I'm not saying how he was treated was right though. What I'm saying is I would've informed the authorities too if it were me in that situation with the duty to protect student bodies.

Who makes a clock without a potato?

I don't doubt that. However, no one can tell me that the Secret Service would not give such a thing a double or triple going over to make sure that it is safe before the President was allowed near it.

This all could have been avoided if the Engineering Teacher would have either took it from the kid or let the Principle know it was not a bomb. But, these are the same people who suspend kids for making Pop Tart guns. This just goes to show you educated does not equal intelligence. Then to make matters worse the cops try and get the kid to admit he made a hoax bomb?! As someone who has performed law enforcement, I'm embarrassed for them.

Yup and I haven't seen anyone bring up the fact that he was only 14 YO and being sent to jail. I would have been terrified out of my mind at that age to go to jail...

This is a sad story where a whole slew of adults failed this kid.

BOOM.
[Von Doom drops mic]