News 9th Grader Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School

AI Thread Summary
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.
Ygggdrasil
Science Advisor
Insights Author
Gold Member
Messages
3,753
Reaction score
4,198
Ahmed Mohamed — who makes his own radios and repairs his own go-kart — hoped to impress his teachers when he brought a homemade clock to MacArthur High on Monday.

Instead, the school phoned police about Ahmed’s circuit-stuffed pencil case.

So the 14-year-old missed the student council meeting and took a trip in handcuffs to juvenile detention. His clock now sits in an evidence room. Police say they may yet charge him with making a hoax bomb — though they acknowledge he told everyone who would listen that it’s a clock.
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

Of course, this comes from a city, Irving, TX, with a mayor who has been an http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/northwest-dallas-county/headlines/20150319-national-islamic-furor-focuses-on-irving-vote-tonight.ece.

The worst quote comes at the end of the article
He’s vowed never to take an invention to school again.

It's official: the terrorists have won.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
  • Like
Likes BiGyElLoWhAt, EatTheRich, dsatkas and 8 others
Physics news on Phys.org
Idiocracy :< The kid did nothing wrong, but gets labeled for being of certain complexion. This is...bs -.-
 
  • Like
Likes BiGyElLoWhAt and EatTheRich
I used to tinker with electronics and would bring them to school too to work on them. It's sad that you can only do that if you're white. I thought the vow never to do that again was heartbreaking too, another potential genius shot down by american education. Something kinda cool that came out of it though, because he was wearing a NASA shirt when he was arrested, researchers from JPL apparently invited him for a tour.
 
  • Like
Likes BiGyElLoWhAt, Frank Silver, EatTheRich and 2 others
Rather, he said, officers determined it was "a hoax bomb" and a "naive accident."

The nerve!

He's wearing a NASA shirt!

CPAFMKrUkAABI2a.jpg
 
  • Like
Likes BiGyElLoWhAt and Titan97
I thought at first the title said he brought a home made glock to school, and was about to question what the uproar was about.

newjerseyrunner said:
I used to tinker with electronics and would bring them to school too to work on them. It's sad that you can only do that if you're white. I thought the vow never to do that again was heartbreaking too, another potential genius shot down by american education. Something kinda cool that came out of it though, because he was wearing a NASA shirt when he was arrested, researchers from JPL apparently invited him for a tour.

Texans have a very special brand of stupidity. I don't think you'd find a story like this in other parts of the country.

Ygggdrasil said:
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

Of course, this comes from a city, Irving, TX, with a mayor who has been an http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/northwest-dallas-county/headlines/20150319-national-islamic-furor-focuses-on-irving-vote-tonight.ece.

The worst quote comes at the end of the articleIt's official: the terrorists have won.

There's nothing wrong with being an outspoken critic of Islam. I am an outspoken critic of Islam, and Christianity. The only problem is when you turn disdain for religion into prejudice against people.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
  • Like
Likes BiGyElLoWhAt, nikkkom, AdamA0 and 6 others
dipole said:
<Snip>
There's nothing wrong with being an outspoken critic of Islam. I am an outspoken critic of Islam, and Christianity. The only problem is when you turn disdain for religion into prejudice against people.

It is wrong when you are a public figure and some of your constituents are Muslim. Similar issue with this Davis woman who did not want to grant the marriage licenses on the grounds that doing so violated her religious tenets. Go practice your personal beliefs on your personal time; while you are a government employee, you must follow the law. While a private citizen, of course you may criticize whomever you want as long as you don't do it in a way that incites violence, I would say.
 
  • Like
Likes vanhees71 and atyy
WWGD said:
It is wrong when you are a public figure and some of your constituents are Muslim. Similar issue with this Davis woman who did not want to grant the marriage licenses on the grounds that doing so violated her religious tenets. Go practice your personal beliefs on your personal time; while you are a government employee, you must follow the law. While a private citizen, of course you may criticize whomever you want as long as you don't do it in a way that incites violence, I would say.

No. How is being a critic of something the same thing as forcing your beliefs on people? There's nothing in the law that says government officials have to respect your personal beliefs - they only have to respect the law. If people take issue with a politicians opinion about some social or religious issue, they are free to vote against that person. And wouldn't you prefer people expose their opinions, good or bad, rather than keep them secret and let them silently impact their policy decisions?
 
  • Like
Likes BiGyElLoWhAt and nikkkom
dipole said:
No. How is being a critic of something the same thing as forcing your beliefs on people? There's nothing in the law that says government officials have to respect your personal beliefs - they only have to respect the law. If people take issue with a politicians opinion about some social or religious issue, they are free to vote against that person. And wouldn't you prefer people expose their opinions, good or bad, rather than keep them secret and let them silently impact their policy decisions?
I never said that this is equivalent to forcing your beliefs on people. But I think this is a particularly -delicate area, since you should not show show favoritism of one group over another when you exercise power over them; this is ethically troublesome, I would say. I think if you so deeply dislike some of your constituents, you should recuse yourself from running. Other than that, I have no problem with any other type of belief being expressed.
 
Ahmed invited to the White House. Great recovery Mr. President!

"Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House?," @POTUS tweeted. "We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It's what makes America great."
 
  • Like
Likes BiGyElLoWhAt, h6ss, AdamA0 and 9 others
  • #10
Ygggdrasil said:
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

Of course, this comes from a city, Irving, TX, with a mayor who has been an http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/northwest-dallas-county/headlines/20150319-national-islamic-furor-focuses-on-irving-vote-tonight.ece.

The worst quote comes at the end of the articleIt's official: the terrorists have won.
I mean seriously, the physics teacher was not able to differentiate a bomb from a clock.
This is how you create terrorism. This kid did nothing wrong.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
  • Like
Likes RooksAndBooks
  • #11
TheAnt said:
I mean seriously, the physics teacher was not able to differentiate a bomb from a clock.
This is how you create terrorism. This kid did nothing wrong.
Besides, if the kid actually wanted to create a bomb, would he have brought it to school and shown it to everyone?
 
  • #13
dipole said:
...Texans have a very special brand of stupidity.
Hey! @Drakkith is from Texas! And I'm pretty sure @Evo lived there for a while...

I don't think you'd find a story like this in other parts of the country.
...

Digging deeper into the story, it seems there is more to it than just brains, bigotry, and innocence:
clock.or.ticking.bomb.jpg

"...packed up the wirey mess in a pencil case to show his engineering teacher..."​

Reminds me a bit of a line from "Men in Black":


This kid has a "beeping" "pencil case" that looks way more like a suitcase.
He's an engineering child, and should not have any interest in colored pencils.
I would have been suspicious too.

Ahmed Mohamed, 14, arrested over clock mistaken for bomb
He said his engineering teacher had congratulated him but advised him "not to show any other teachers".
The teenager said another teacher became aware of it when the device beeped during the lesson.
"She was like - it looks like a bomb," he said.
 
  • Like
Likes nikkkom, Monsterboy, vanhees71 and 3 others
  • #14
WWGD said:
Besides, if the kid actually wanted to create a bomb, would he have brought it to school and shown it to everyone?
Yeah, logics!
 
  • #15
TheAnt said:
I mean seriously, the physics teacher was not able to differentiate a bomb from a clock.
This is how you create terrorism. This kid did nothing wrong.
Apparently the engineering teacher new it was a clock and cautioned the student against sharing it with others...
it was the English teacher that took the clock and 'turned him in'
 
  • Like
Likes nikkkom, Monsterboy and atyy
  • #16
Wow, that is disgusting. Charge him with making a hoax bomb?! Grief.
 
  • Like
Likes RooksAndBooks
  • #17
“He just wants to invent good things for mankind,” said Ahmed’s father, Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed, who immigrated from Sudan and occasionally returns there to run for president.

His father just casually returns to his home country to run for president...
 
  • Like
Likes AdamA0, mrnike992 and DEvens
  • #18
nuuskur said:
Idiocracy :< The kid did nothing wrong, but gets labeled for being of certain complexion. This is...bs -.-

Um... Well possibly it was a black clock. But the cop in the photo is at least as "certain complexion" as the kid. So I'm doubting it.

So you bring something to school that, to an English teacher, looks like a bomb. It's a bag of wires with a digital timer dial on it. And it's in your bag in English class and it beeps. Are you trying to impress your shop teacher with your ability at electronics? Or are you trying to create a fuss? Or are you just a grossly unwise doofus who has no idea what is appropriate in a classroom. That's a tough call from a fragmentary news article full of references to CAIR.

So if we are so careful not to be biased: Imagine this is a little white Christian sprog and the exact thing happened to him. Word for word, stroke for stroke. Are you equally as exercised? Does the POTUS send him an invitation to the White House? Hmm...
 
  • Like
Likes nikkkom, Squoe, Jaeusm and 1 other person
  • #19
WWGD said:
It is wrong when you are a public figure and some of your constituents are Muslim. Similar issue with this Davis woman who did not want to grant the marriage licenses on the grounds that doing so violated her religious tenets. Go practice your personal beliefs on your personal time; while you are a government employee, you must follow the law. While a private citizen, of course you may criticize whomever you want as long as you don't do it in a way that incites violence, I would say.

Actually, we have long since disposed of this position. "Just following orders" is not a defense. One hopes that a public official will refuse to do things he or she believes to be evil even if their job requires it. And in the case you refer to, there is a reasonable mechanism that the local government can recall the official if they find this refusal unacceptable.
 
  • #20
I would have been suspicious too.
Certainly hindsight is 20-20, and so this story looks like something from the Tales of the Bizarre.

Considering what has gone on in past years, erroring on the side of security seems to be the more prudent action.
If it had been really an explosive device, homemade, the alternate story would have questioning the teacher for not alerting authorities.
I don't really see any evidence of racial profiling at all on the part of teachers or police.
The times we live in.

Anyways, if he is to bring his clock to the White House, I suppose the president's men will just wave him on through without checking the clock package. NOT!
 
  • Like
Likes nikkkom and OmCheeto
  • #21
I wonder how frequent bomb threats and similar scares are at schools. Hmm... They seem to be pretty frequent. These are all in the last few days.

http://www.wfmj.com/story/29978224/second-threat-at-niles-schools-brings-book-bag-ban
http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2015...ating-school-bomb-threat-in-armstrong-county/
http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/porter/bomb-threat-at-fegely-middle-school-deemed-unfounded/article_b377e731-9e71-5dec-bed6-28059350103d.html
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/pupils-staff-three-scottish-schools-6453837
http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2015/09/false_bomb_threat_reported_at.html
http://www.northlandsnewscenter.com/news/local/Bomb-threat-prompts-evacuation-of-UW-Superior-and-Superior-High-School-327913271.html

Is there a reason for officials to be concerned about a bag of wires with a digital timer on it? Maybe I'm glad I'm in STEM and not law enforcement.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
  • Like
Likes atyy
  • #22
I built a clock, 40 years ago, for shop class. That would have made me about Ahmed's age.
It consisted of a 555 timer, and some peripheral components.
This kids clock, was way too complicated.

I'm calling "14 year old shenanigans".
 
  • #23
Personally, I think that the reaction by the police etc was good. They are not demolitions experts and trained to distinguish harmless devices from dangerous devices. If it were my kids school I would prefer they arrest and evacuate as a first response and then have an expert evaluate the device only after the kids are clear.

If your son or daughter's life was on the line would you want an English teacher doing circuit analysis?

IMO, the person who acted incorrectly was the Engineering teacher. They should not have told the student to conceal the clock. They should have taken the clock to the principal and explained that it was harmless directly.
 
  • Like
Likes nikkkom, Monsterboy, billy_joule and 4 others
  • #24
DaleSpam said:
If it were my kids school I would prefer they arrest and evacuate as a first response and then have an expert evaluate the device only after the kids are clear.
Let's make it a different question. What if it were your kid?
 
  • #25
DaleSpam said:
Personally, I think that the reaction by the police etc was good. They are not demolitions experts and trained to distinguish harmless devices from dangerous devices. If it were my kids school I would prefer they arrest and evacuate as a first response and then have an expert evaluate the device only after the kids are clear.

If your son or daughter's life was on the line would you want an English teacher doing circuit analysis?

IMO, the person who acted incorrectly was the Engineering teacher. They should not have told the student to conceal the clock. They should have taken the clock to the principal and explained that it was harmless directly.

Hindsight is always 20/20.

This thread reminds me a bit of watching a young, second generation Iranian-American PFer, building rockets as a hobby, down in southern California.

Om's thoughts said:
Cyrus! Stop that! You're just asking for it!
 
  • #26
Greg Bernhardt said:
Let's make it a different question. What if it were your kid?
I would have told him to leave the clock at home. If he ignored my advice then I would have picked him up at the precinct. Kids do stupid things and get arrested.

I had an experience once where a colleague of mine had built a MRI receive coil, basically a harmless antenna for receiving MRI signals but with visible capacitors and copper wiring. He was going to take it to another university to try it on their scanner. He thought that he would just put it in his carry on luggage. I told him that if he did he would probably get thrown in some TSA jail. He decided to ship it by FedEx instead.

If you are building prototypes you have to have enough self awareness to understand that people aren't going to recognize what it is that you built and are likely to see it as sinister.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Likes D.Gray3, DEvens, Monsterboy and 4 others
  • #27
leetramp said:
If you'd like to add your voice to an online petition asking the Principal and Police Chief to apologize, you can do so here:
I'm not going to join the petition, but I do think an apology would be appropriate. However, in the apology I would state that the policy will remain and that I would rather issue more apologies than issue any eulogies.
 
  • Like
Likes nikkkom and atyy
  • #28
DaleSpam said:
I had an experience once where a colleague of mine had built a MRI receive coil, basically a harmless antenna for receiving MRI signals but with visible capacitors and copper wiring. He was going to take it to another university to try it on their scanner. He thought that he would just put it in his carry on luggage. I told him that if he did he would probably get thrown in some TSA jail. He decided to ship it by FedEx instead.

I was in our local Fire Station for an Emergency Operation Center (EOC) exercise a few years back. I was at the Communication Center portion of the EOC, helping out with HAM radio comms. I had my backpack with extra gear sitting over against a nearby wall, and my plastic tube with extra antennas for handheld radios was sticking out of the top of the backpack. All of a sudden the Incident Commander (a Fire Chief) walks by, and yells real loud "Whose backpack is this!?" Turns out my PVC plastic tube with screw-on ends looked like it could be part of a pipe bomb -- yikes. I apologetically took my spare antenna tube out to my truck. Good thing the IC knows me pretty well, or I could have gotten kicked out of the exercise...
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Likes atyy
  • #29
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.
 
  • Like
Likes BiGyElLoWhAt, RooksAndBooks, atyy and 1 other person
  • #30
DEvens said:
< Snip>

So if we are so careful not to be biased: Imagine this is a little white Christian sprog and the exact thing happened to him. Word for word, stroke for stroke. Are you equally as exercised? Does the POTUS send him an invitation to the White House? Hmm...

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?
 
  • #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.
 
  • Like
Likes BiGyElLoWhAt, Monsterboy and atyy
  • #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.
 
  • Like
Likes EatTheRich, DEvens and Monsterboy
  • #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?
 
  • Like
Likes nikkkom
  • #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.
 
  • Like
Likes EatTheRich, Merlin3189 and RooksAndBooks
  • #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.
 
  • Like
Likes BiGyElLoWhAt, RooksAndBooks and Dale
  • #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.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
  • #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.
 
  • Like
Likes BiGyElLoWhAt and lisab
  • #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.
 
Last edited:
  • #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.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
  • Like
Likes BiGyElLoWhAt, Carrock, EatTheRich and 4 others
  • #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?
 
  • Like
Likes BiGyElLoWhAt
  • #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.
 
  • Like
Likes DrClaude, vela, Astronuc and 4 others
  • #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?
 
  • Like
Likes RooksAndBooks
  • #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.
 
  • Like
Likes BiGyElLoWhAt, DrClaude, Monsterboy and 1 other person
Back
Top