14-year-old Ahmed Mohamed arrested for bringing homemade clock to school

[xxMATTGxx]

Police in Texas have arrested a 14-year-old boy for building a clock. Ahmed Mohamed, who lives in Irving and has a keen interest in robotics and engineering, put the device together on Sunday night. When he took it to school the next day, he was pulled out of class, interviewed by police officers, and taken in handcuffs to juvenile detention, after being told by teachers that his creation looked like a bomb.

Ahmed told The Dallas Morning News that he showed his clock — a simple device, created from a circuit board and a power supply wired to a digital display, all strapped inside a case with a tiger hologram on the front — to his engineering teacher first, who advised him not to show any other staff members at MacArthur High School. He originally kept it in his bag during English class, but his teacher heard it beep during the lesson — when Ahmed showed her his home-made clock at the end of class, she took it away from him. In sixth period, the school principal came for Ahmed with a police officer in tow, arresting him and marching him out of school. The schoolboy says he was interrogated by five officers, who asked why he was trying to make a bomb, and was threatened with expulsion by his Principal unless he made a written statement.

Source and Full Article: http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/16/93...lock-hoax-bomb

Thoughts? Bit over the top once they have discovered it wasn't an actual bomb or not?

[Hannah]

All of that over a home-made clock... jeez.
I mean, with terrorist fear and 9/11 just passing and stuff I can see the increased tension. But it is a clock. wtaf.

[Joe]

Racism evidently - of course they'll deny it saying "they'd act this way if any child did something suspicious" but it's obvious that isn't the case.

[-:Undertaker:-]

Racism evidently - of course they'll deny it saying "they'd act this way if any child did something suspicious" but it's obvious that isn't the case.

Not at all. There's various examples in both America and some even worse in Britain where the Police have acted as thought Police or arrested people for the most absurd of things. Whether it's standing in the street quoting the Bible or this example. It's another demonstration of unchecked power, not racism.

It's what you get when you keep giving the Police more and more power as well as keep centralising them (as has been done in this country under the guise of terrorism laws and which Obama is trying to do in the US of A) yet everytime in the past when I have said abuses of power will happen more often by doing this I am shouted down by the safety-at-all-costs gang.

Well this is what you end up with.

[xxMATTGxx]

This is the letter the school is sending out to all parents:

http://www.irvingisd.net/cms/lib010/...ampaign=buffer

Ongoing police investigation for a clock lol

[dbgtz]

I'm curious at what this clock looks like to be honest.

[FlyingJesus]

*REMOVED*

Edited by Expling (Forum Moderator): Please always be appropriate when posting!

[Jake]

Whoa ^
It seems abit blown out of proportion tbh. Like the kid likes to build things, let him get on with it.
Im pretty sure if he was white & his name was robin or something then they wouldn't have been suspicous in the slightest

[xxMATTGxx]

The case has now been closed and the boy won't be getting charged. Here's a photo of it:

This is the device Irving Police called suspicious #wfaa pic.twitter.com/arnur3x9LY

— D Fernandez (@DemondFernandez) September 16, 2015

President Obama also tweeted:

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

— President Obama (@POTUS44) September 16, 2015

[dbgtz]

To be fair, if I saw this without context, the first thing I wouldn't think is that it might be a clock.