News 9th Grader Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School

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Ahmed Mohamed, a 14-year-old student from Irving, Texas, was arrested after bringing a homemade clock to school, which teachers mistakenly identified as a bomb. Despite his insistence that it was merely a clock, police detained him and considered charging him with making a hoax bomb. The incident sparked widespread outrage, with many arguing that Ahmed's treatment was influenced by racial and religious bias, as he is Muslim. Critics highlighted the failure of school officials to recognize the device's harmless nature and the overreaction of law enforcement. Ahmed's experience led to an online petition calling for apologies from school and police officials, and he received an invitation from President Obama to visit the White House, emphasizing the need to inspire young inventors. The discussion also touched on broader themes of societal fear surrounding innovation and the consequences of zero-tolerance policies in schools, with participants expressing concern over the chilling effect such incidents may have on young inventors and the perception of science in educational settings.
  • #31
Khashishi said:
No, the police response was not ok. They quickly realized it was not a bomb so there was no need to evacuate the school, but they decided to arrest the kid anyway.

The police wanted to get him to say something incriminating so the charge of a 'hoax bomb' would stick. So they used the tried and true tactic of keeping him isolated and asking the same question 50 times long after they knew it was just a clock and they would look foolish to most people for the arrest and interrogation if no charges were filed.
 
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  • #32
This should be somewhat worrying to anybody that does amateur electronics. This could have easily been "Makers" in a public library.
 
  • #33
zero-tolerance.jpg


People wonder why American schools are bad. Well, zero tolerance is just one stupid policy.
 
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  • #34
dipole said:
Texans have a very special brand of stupidity. I don't think you'd find a story like this in other parts of .
25 million people down there. Do you live and travel widely in Tx?
 
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  • #35
Khashishi said:
They quickly realized it was not a bomb so there was no need to evacuate.
The Irving Tx Police Department does not have a bomb squad. There was nobody qualified to make that determination.
 
  • #36
DaleSpam said:
The Irving Tx Police Department does not even have a bomb squad. There was nobody qualified to make that determination.

What reason would they have to believe it is a bomb? You can't just go confiscating and dismantling stuff for no reason.
 
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  • #37
berkeman said:
Turns out my PVC plastic tube with screw-on ends looked like it could be part of a pipe bomb -- yikes.
Yeah, I can see that. Why did you keep the antenna parts in a pipe? Was it to protect them from getting bent?
 
  • #38
DaleSpam said:
nobody qualified
That about sums it up for all parties involved.
 
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  • #39
mheslep said:
25 million people down there. Do you live and travel widely in Tx?

Here's why I bash on Texas public schools:

"Knowledge-Based Education – We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority." The Texas GOP platform (from 2012) was opposed to teaching critical thinking because it would challenge parental authority and the student's fixed beliefs. http://www.texasgop.org/about-the-party/

(C) identify the individuals whose principles of laws and government institutions informed the American founding documents, including those of Moses, William Blackstone, John Locke, and Charles de Montesquieu.. Texas schools forgot that the Founding Fathers said that the USA was not founded on Christian principles. As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion,-as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen,-and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries. --John Adams

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/local-news/20141007-texas-sat-math-scores-hit-a-22-year-low.ece I'm sure this is self-explanatory.

This is why I think Texas schools are bad (not all of them though).
tumblr_mahn6zAQy41qj8u1do1_500.jpg
Can we say that POLITICIANS from Texas are dumb?

Here's American public schools in general (one, because listing all their flaws would take too long):

The USA had a graduation rate of 81% in 2012-2013. In other words, 1/5 people didn't graduate.
 
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  • #40
Even the dumbest ought to be able to figure out that a bomb requires some kind of explosive.
Electronic circuits are not explosives and a timing device isn't even necessary to produce a crude bomb.
 
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  • #41
rootone said:
Even the dumbest ought to be able to figure out that a bomb requires some kind of explosive.
Electronic circuits are not explosives and a timing device isn't even necessary for a crude bomb.

Well, that kid is probably smarter than 95% of the population of Texas.
 
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  • #42
From a story in The Dallas Morning News.
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/northwest-dallas-county/headlines/20150915-irving-9th-grader-arrested-after-taking-homemade-clock-to-school.ece?hootPostID=532c3696eb235a3f481ed45f733e6d90

Ahmed never claimed his device was anything but a clock, said police spokesman James McLellan. And police have no reason to think it was dangerous. But officers still didn’t believe Ahmed was giving them the whole story.

“We have no information that he claimed it was a bomb,” McLellan said. “He kept maintaining it was a clock, but there was no broader explanation.”

Asked what broader explanation the boy could have given, the spokesman explained:

“It could reasonably be mistaken as a device if left in a bathroom or under a car. The concern was, what was this thing built for? Do we take him into custody?”
What more to the kid's story? The 14-year old, 9th grade student built a clock - a digital clock. Certainly clocks are built to tell time. In this case, Ahmed build a clock because he could - he likes to tinker and build electronics. I used to do the same thing when I was 13-14. So did a kid down the street. I started with a Tandy 100-in-1 electronics kit. A clock and short wave radio were just two of the projects. I also learned about circuits and soldering - at home - not school.

It probably didn't occur to him that making a clock is a big deal, since it was so easy for him. How is a 14-year old supposed to ascertain the minds or suspicions of adults? How is the kid supposed to know about the anxiety/fear in some people? Isn't that the job/responsibility of the principal?

I'm sure that fact that he is Muslim is a factor in his treatment, or mistreatment as the case may be.

The police could have simply taken the device for analysis.
 
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  • #43
DavidSnider said:
This should be somewhat worrying to anybody that does amateur electronics. This could have easily been "Makers" in a public library.
Its an issue with amateur science in general, one has no idea what will get the black helicopters over ones house, due to a connection with something else you didn't even know about your research could be related to. When it comes to the war on terror, its too easy to let science as a public endeavor be a casualty, but it can't be. This kid, if he gets his dream of going to MIT could be part of inventing a new technology that saves thousands of lives, very easily. Its important to compare numbers of people who die from terrorism, vs. the things science is working on to get a clear picture. Its also important to remember the one principle that's useful for both national security AND innovation: openness and information sharing.
 
  • #44
'He kept the clock inside his school bag in English class, but the teacher complained when the alarm beeped in the middle of a lesson. Ahmed brought his invention up to show her afterward.'

Q: How much time elapsed between the beeping and when he showed the English teacher the clock?'“She was like, it looks like a bomb,” he said.

“I told her, ‘It doesn’t look like a bomb to me.’”

The teacher kept the clock. When the principal and a police officer pulled Ahmed out of sixth period, he suspected he wouldn’t get it back.'

Q: Where did the teacher keep the suspected bomb? How quickly did the teacher inform the police of the suspected bomb? Was the school immediately evacuated?
 
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  • #45
Rio Larsen said:
Texas SAT scores are staggeringly mediocre.[/URL] I'm sure this is self-explanatory.]
Like the hand made clock in school, no the explanation is not self evident. Check the stats on poor immigrants in Tx.
 
  • #47
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/11/the_war_on_the.html
The War on the Unexpected
We've opened up a new front on the war on terror. It's an attack on the unique, the unorthodox, the unexpected; it's a war on different. If you act different, you might find yourself investigated, questioned, and even arrested -- even if you did nothing wrong, and had no intention of doing anything wrong. The problem is a combination of citizen informants and a CYA attitude among police that results in a knee-jerk escalation of reported threats.
...
Of course, by then it's too late for the authorities to admit that they made a mistake and overreacted, that a sane voice of reason at some level should have prevailed. What follows is the parade of police and elected officials praising each other for doing a great job, and prosecuting the poor victim -- the person who was different in the first place -- for having the temerity to try to trick them.

This is a perfect example.
 
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  • #48
mheslep said:
Like the hand made clock in school, no the explanation is not self evident. Check the stats on poor immigrants in Tx.

I was citing low SAT scores to suggest academic failure within Texas.
 
  • #49
mheslep said:
Like the hand made clock in school, no the explanation is not self evident. Check the stats on poor immigrants in Tx.

Sorry, you lost me here. What are you talking about?
 
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  • #50
I have a hobby that I love, but I've been neglecting it for several years now: when I experience or hear of an absurd or funny situation, a cartoon often pops into my head. I like to draw these in Paint because I like the primitive way they come out.

While discussing this absurd case, this picture popped into my head - so I drew it:

JsemHyu.png


Look - I know we have PFers who live in Texas, or used to live in Texas, or who will live in Texas in the future - please don't take this too seriously. It is not intended to cause offense, but rather just a giggle. Hugs to all of you, or I should say hugs to y'all. The struggle is real.
 
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  • #51
lisab said:
I have a hobby that I love, but I've been neglecting it for several years now: when I experience or hear of an absurd or funny situation, a cartoon often pops into my head. I like to draw these in Paint because I like the primitive way they come out.

While discussing this absurd case, this picture popped into my head - so I drew it:

JsemHyu.png


Look - I know we have PFers who live in Texas, or used to live in Texas, or who will live in Texas in the future - please don't take this too seriously. It is not intended to cause offense, but rather just a giggle. Hugs to all of you, or I should say hugs to y'all. The struggle is real.

To be honest, I'm surprised that "embarrassment" was spelled correctly. :3 As for the members who live in Texas: they are most likely intelligent. I'm sure that those people look at their state right now with equal discontentment.
 
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  • #52
Rio Larsen said:
I was citing low SAT scores to suggest academic failure within Texas.
Yes, I know, and that may be the cause or it may be a post hoc rationalization. The cause is not "self-explanatory"
 
  • #53
Rio Larsen said:
To be honest, I'm surprised that "embarrassment" was spelled correctly. :3

I realize I'm a crappy speller :wink:, but I try not to be a lazy one. Cheers.
 
  • #55
This story just keeps getting better.
The Bizarre Backstory Behind #IStandWithAhmed’s 2-Time Sudanese Presidential Candidate Father [okayafrica]
SEPTEMBER 16, 2015
...
Comments
...Wait, are you saying the son may have been "nudged" by his dad to set off this publicity firestorm?,,,

I think this is plausible. As DEvens pointed out, this happens every day across the nation, and nobody hears about it. Why is this incident so special?

Might this be what Trevor Noah was talking about the other day?
...we live in a world of faux outrage. It’s hashtag this, hashtag that. There are people who jump onto trends before they even know what the trend is about. People want to be part of the good, but they don’t want to put the work in, so they think, “Can’t I just say that I agree?” Then you have an artificial inflation of what the problem is. All of the sudden you get all of these big scandals, but they’re not big, because everyone is on the periphery of the argument.
...

I'd like to read the police interview. Ahmed reminds me of someone I knew personally, who liked to play "social prankster" games. Time will hopefully tell which hashtag wins. #IStandWithAhmed or #AhmedsPlayingUs*

*I just made that up.
 
  • #56
Wow have times changed.

In my high school electronics class it was required that every kid build some electronic project.
Our class was given some old army surplus stuff from Cape Canaveral to pillage for parts. I was interested in audio, built a hifi amplifier with push-pull 6AQ5 tubes... but that's another story

One of those .army surplus panels had a placard with wording that was just irresistible to a 14 yr old kid.
I put it on an aluminum box, installed Neon lamp indicators above each legend on the placard , and just for effect added a telescoping antenna that did nothing.
A 90 volt radio " B "battery made the neon lamps flash (this was 1961, before LED's).

So what i had was a curious looking aluminum box with an antenna and flashing lights above these words :
"Warhead Arming OK"
"Warhead Vacuum OK"
"Arm and Fuse Continuity OK" ,
and a couple other ominous sounding phrases.
I told anybody who asked it was the target for my guided missile.

Teacher liked it so well he immediately tucked it under his arm and carried it directly to teacher's lounge where it made quite a splash. Even my English teacher remarked next day she thought it was "cool".

I guess that's why we're allotted just threescore and ten - the world changes more than we can stand.

Have Fun Ahmed. "Ni Illegitimus Non Carborundumus..."
 
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  • #58
Ahmed Mohammed's family offers pizza to crowd of waiting media at his home

xLfXAh6.jpg


VMuFdMw.jpg


0YIb3dW.jpg
 
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  • #60
WWGD said:
EDIT
There are no strained , difficult relations with white Christians, who are not a minority in this country.. Of course this does not mean they should be mistreated, but context matters. And remember you are dealing with a 14 yr old. Could have been addressed more tactfully, I think that is largely what it comes down to.
Again, if the kid intended to blow up the place, would he have shown it to everyone?

I think I was wrong here, any child who had to go through something like this should get the same treatment.