9th Grader Arrested in Houston for making ... a clock. - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: LabSpokane
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2015, 02:34:34 am
content: http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/northwest-dallas-county/headlines/20150915-irving-ninth-grader-arrested-after-taking-homemade-clock-to-school.eceFrom the "You've Got to Be Shitting Me" files, don't do electronics if you're a student named Ahmed in Texas:Irving 9th-grader arrested after taking homemade clock to school: 'So you tried to make a bomb?'FacebookTwitterEmail94CommentPrintVernon Bryant/Staff PhotographerAfter taking a homemade clock to school, Irving MacArthur High student Ahmed Mohamed, 14, was taken in handcuffs to juvenile detention. Police say they may charge him with making a hoax bomb — though they acknowledge he told everyone who would listen that it’s a clock.By AVI SELK aselk@dallasnews.comStaff WriterPublished: 15 September 2015 07:16 PMUpdated: 15 September 2015 09:14 PMIRVING — 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.In the meantime, Ahmed’s been suspended, his father is upset and the Council on American-Islamic Relations is once again eyeing claims of Islamophobia in Irving.Box of circuit boardsA box full of circuit boards sits at the foot of Ahmed’s small bed in central Irving. His door marks the border where the Mohamed family’s cramped but lavishly decorated house begins to look like the back room at RadioShack.“Here in high school, none of the teachers know what I can do,” Ahmed said, fiddling with a cable while a soldering iron dangled from the shelf behind him.He loved robotics club in middle school and was searching for a similar niche in his first few weeks of high school.So he decided to do what he’s always done: He built something.Ahmed’s clock was hardly his most elaborate creation. He said he threw it together in about 20 minutes before bed on Sunday: a circuit board and power supply wired to a digital display, all strapped inside a case with a tiger hologram on the front.He showed it to his engineering teacher first thing Monday morning and didn’t get quite the reaction he’d hoped.“He was like, ‘That’s really nice,’” Ahmed said. “‘I would advise you not to show any other teachers.’”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.“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.They led Ahmed into a room where four other police officers waited. He said an officer he’d never seen before leaned back in his chair and remarked: “Yup. That’s who I thought it was.”Ahmed felt suddenly conscious of his brown skin and his name — one of the most common in the Muslim religion. But the police kept him busy with questions.The bell rang at least twice, he said, while the officers searched his belongings and questioned his intentions. The principal threatened to expel him if he didn’t make a written statement, he said.“They were like, ‘So you tried to make a bomb?’” Ahmed said.“I told them no, I was trying to make a clock.”“He said, ‘It looks like a movie bomb to me.’”Police skepticismAhmed 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?”Police led Ahmed out of MacArthur about 3 p.m., his hands cuffed behind him and an officer on each arm. A few students gaped in the halls. He remembers the shocked expression of his student counselor — the one “who knows I’m a good boy.”Ahmed was spared the inside of a cell. The police sent him out of the juvenile detention center to meet his parents shortly after taking his fingerprints.They’re still investigating the case, and Ahmed hasn’t been back to school. His family said the principal suspended him for three days.“They thought, ‘How could someone like this build something like this unless it’s a threat?’” Ahmed said.An Irving ISD statement gave no details about the case, citing student privacy laws.‘Invent good things’“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. “But because his name is Mohamed and because of Sept. 11, I think my son got mistreated.”He’s not the only one who thinks so. Not much for local politics, Mohamed wasn’t paying attention over the summer, when Mayor Beth Van Duyne became a national celebrity in anti-Islamic circles, fueling rumors in speeches that the religious minority was plotting to usurp American laws.But the Council on American-Islamic Relations took note.“This all raises a red flag for us: how Irving’s government entities are operating in the current climate,” said Alia Salem, who directs the council’s North Texas chapter and has spoken to lawyers about Ahmed’s arrest.“We’re still investigating,” she said, “but it seems pretty egregious.”Meanwhile, Ahmed is sitting home in his bedroom, tinkering with old gears and electrical converters, pronouncing words like “ethnicity” for what sounds like the first time.He’s vowed never to take an invention to school again.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 16, 2015, 02:47:50 am
content: This makes me angryWhat a sorry world we live in.

author: crispy_tofu
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2015, 02:49:40 am
content: That's absolutely ridiculous!

author: AF6LJ
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 16, 2015, 02:50:01 am
content: Welcome to the United Police States of the New World Order.Your PAPERS PLEASE.

author: ccs46
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2015, 02:52:57 am
content: Quote from: LabSpokane on September 16, 2015, 02:34:34 amThat is one of the many issues with the American school system, generally with society in a whole. Not every person who is a Muslim and name is Ahmed, is a terrorist. IT WAS A FREAKING CLOCK PEOPLE! NOT EVERY CLOCK IS A BOMB!

author: AF6LJ
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 16, 2015, 02:53:24 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on September 16, 2015, 02:47:50 amHow do you think I feel I live in this mass paranoia know as the USA.

author: Fsck
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2015, 03:02:25 am
content: uh, it's Texas. shouldn't that be the obvious answer for everything in this situation?(I know it's a jerk comment)

author: ccs46
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2015, 03:03:34 am
content: Quote from: AF6LJ on September 16, 2015, 02:53:24 amI feel sickened.There are so many things the school did wrong, not to mention the officer having assumptions before even seeing the kid or hearing his explanation.

author: ccs46
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2015, 03:05:00 am
content: Quote from: Fsck on September 16, 2015, 03:02:25 amThe hell it is... It perfectly explains it.

author: AF6LJ
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 16, 2015, 03:10:24 am
content: Quote from: ccs46 on September 16, 2015, 03:05:00 amHaving lived there I would disagree.I would have expected this to happen in the people's republic of Kalifornia.

author: linux-works
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2015, 03:12:56 am
content: Quote from: Fsck on September 16, 2015, 03:02:25 ambut it is actually accurate. texas is one of the places in the US that has quite a high concentration of backward-ass non-thinkers. the war on women is heavily fought in texas, there is only 1 'valid' religion in texas, hell, there is only 1 valid skin color in texas. you could not pay me to live in texas.sorry texas people reading this, but you, down deep, know this is true.it does not excuse it, but if you know how the US is spread out (culture wise) nothing in this article would surprise you.

author: fivefish
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2015, 03:13:30 am
content: Now, why didn't the engineering teacher stepped in and defended the boy?If there's anybody in that school that could have injected some little bit of common sense to everyone present, and cleared things up, it would have been him.Instead, he's been indifferent and even hinted that what the boy did was wrong by saying "don't show it to other teachers"? WTF???

author: linux-works
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2015, 03:15:39 am
content: Quote from: AF6LJ on September 16, 2015, 03:10:24 am?I live in cali and I can tell you, first hand, that there is no sign of anti-muslim feelings here. this is the most accepting of all states in the US, in fact, when it comes to letting people be themselves and understanding that there are lots of different, valid, ways to live. we don't force an ideology down your throat. can't say the same about the deep south, sorry to say.not sure where your experience in cali comes from, but I assure those who have not been here, cali is NOT a hate-filled state. its just not and anyone who says that is 100% wrong.

author: hamster_nz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2015, 03:18:21 am
content: http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/northwest-dallas-county/headlines/20150915-irving-ninth-grader-arrested-after-taking-homemade-clock-to-school.eceIRVING — 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.Tell me this isn't true - land of the free and all that!

author: linux-works
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2015, 03:18:36 am
content: Quote from: fivefish on September 16, 2015, 03:13:30 amprobably because he knew where he was and in that area of the country, you'd be fighting uphill battles and its often a career-limiting move to buck the system, down there.Quotehe did not imply that the boy did wrong. my read was that he advised the boy that IN TEXAS, you don't want to trigger the fear feelings that the locals have. he was simply identifying the vibe down there, probably very accurately. I'm willing to bet he knew that the locals were in the wrong, but he also knew that its a fight neither of them could easily win.

author: fivefish
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2015, 03:25:07 am
content: Quote from: linux-works on September 16, 2015, 03:18:36 amThat's the only thing I can think of... he's very afraid. He'd rather shut his piehole than defend the innocent boy.

author: Lightages
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 16, 2015, 03:25:27 am
content: So now the TSA will ask to throw our watches out before getting on the airplane?Those idiots need to be thrown in jail and have Donald Trump be their warden. Oh yes, that might actually happen to everyone in the US with the upcoming election.

author: nowlan
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2015, 03:26:29 am
content: To be fair, schools will be touchy about bomb threat etc. It is unfortunate that he made the clock in a small case that obscured the contents.Whether the school handled the situation appropriately is another matter.If they thought it was a genuine threat, they would have evacuated the school immediately, not pull the kid from class later in the day.

author: AF6LJ
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 16, 2015, 03:27:44 am
content: Quote from: linux-works on September 16, 2015, 03:15:39 amWell actually while I lived in Texas for a time I was born right here in La Mesa right outside of SanDiego.In regard to the kind of stupidity that goes on here in the bay aria and southern Kalifornia I suggest you do a news search with the search engine of your choice. LA city schools are really bad for this kind of stupidity.As for forcing ideologies down someone's throat. Yes it does happen here, all the time.Sad but true, I am not going to get into a urination contest with you over this, it is not worth it.Take careand may piece be with you.

author: TerminalJack505
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2015, 03:58:50 am
content: Don't be too quick to judge Texas. Doesn't anyone remember this story?:MIT Sophomore Arrested at Logan For Wearing LED DeviceThat happened in Boston. (Beforethe Boston Marathon bombing, btw.)Boston also overreacted when someone put LED-based advertisement signage around town.2007 Boston bomb scare

author: ez24
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2015, 04:12:09 am
content: Listen carefully to the ending in the video. He says he did not put a lock on it because that would look like a threat. He knew what he was doing, he knew it looked like a bomb.https://youtu.be/3mW4w0Y1OXE?t=85My bet is the 3 day suspension will hold up.I agree the police over reacted but they are not electronic people and probably do not know that they could have gotten on this forum and found out is seconds that it was not a bomb. I suggest someone contact the police and give this this forum's email address and an offer for us to help them in the future.As a matter of fact maybe someone can write an app where the police can upload photos to this forum. They would get an expert answer in 5 minutes. Comments?Stupid kid, stupid teacher, stupid police,but maybe the school did the right thingI think the kid put a nail into his coffin in the video, he confesses that it looked like a bomb.

author: linux-works
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2015, 04:15:17 am
content: texas? islamophobic? say it ain't so!yeah. go read up. this is widely reported on, over and over. check any international discussion forum (such as fark; seriously) and you'll see what the view on texas is when it comes to being afraid of those who are not exactly like them. sorry, but some areas do deserve their labels.there is also a war on women in texas. read up on that, too. such hostility toward women who want to have control over their own bodies when it comes to giving birth. texas has a really bad track record when it comes to womens' rights.

author: kwass
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2015, 04:26:21 am
content: Quote from: Lightages on September 16, 2015, 03:25:27 amThe population of Canada will spike if this happens and I'll be the first one over the border.

author: ez24
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2015, 04:46:09 am
content: QuoteI do not know about this but as a Californian I think Texans are against anyone that are not a Texan as defined by a Texan (whatever that is at the moment). Unfortunately Texas is the last state in the Union I would live in and I think I would like it along the gulf. They have a history of the Rangers killing innocent people (in the early 1900s). In my opinion a scary state and I really believe a Texan will be responsible for the downfall of western civilization. Read the "The Big Rich", and find out where your money is going (Texas of course).Back to the subject - now I think it is the schools fault for not teaching about Texan history. If the kid realized where he lived he would not have done what he did.Also remember Texas was a slave state.Disclaimer : I have met nice Texans, they are not all badIt is the state of the Four Families.

author: linux-works
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2015, 04:48:24 am
content: the default should not be 'scared unless you prove to us its safe'.sorry, but I refuse to accept that as the new normal. no one should accept that.the cops were pussies and the school people were, as well. scared of their own shadows. 'zero tolerance' thinking at its best.make no excuses for mindless people like this. its all on them, not the kid. he did nothing wrong. he got slapped down for showing some ability and interest in an area many of us can identify with.I suspect he will sue them and win a fortune. I hope he does, too.