Teen creates clock, shows teacher who think it's a bomb, teen gets arrested

[Darwin333]

if I use the plug to scale it looks like its the size of a griddler or a larger appliance, when I think of a pencil box I think of something a good deal smaller, its not a fully size Samsonite but its not small either...

whatever though, the teacher over reacted, its not the first time something like this has happened, I remember a viral marketing campaign in boston which involved electronic signs in which a guy got arrested...chances are something like this will happen again.

You couldn't fit a coke can in it and close it. Not what I think of when I hear the word "suitcase". I'd wager a months pay with you that all of the girls purses in the school have a larger storage capacity.

 

[MomentsofSanity]

if I use the plug to scale it looks like its the size of a griddler or a larger appliance, when I think of a pencil box I think of something a good deal smaller, its not a fully size Samsonite but its not small either...

whatever though, the teacher over reacted, its not the first time something like this has happened, I remember a viral marketing campaign in boston which involved electronic signs in which a guy got arrested...chances are something like this will happen again.

 

[CitizenKain]

having worked with electronics and built clocks in the past I don't recall ever feeling compelled to build one in a case such as this, but whatever and like I said, having seen images of the device I can somewhat get why there may have been some questions around its design and appearance, was it an over reaction on the part of the teacher and the local law enforcement, absolutely, but it wasn't the first time we have seen a major freakout like this over devices that "aren't familiar" and I am guessing it won't be the last.

One thing I am fairly confident of is that If the kid wasn't muslim we wouldn't be seeing all of this attention by the media.

If this kid wasn't a muslim, literally nothing would have happened.

 

[Sonikku]

"If You See Something, Say Something"


Uno

How nostalgic. Very reminiscent of life in the 50's no doubt.

 

[Darwin333]

And who is to say he didn't do this intentionally hoping to get some notoriety/attention

Anyone that knows anything about electronics can tell that isn't a bomb. I assume that there is at least one teacher in the school that has at least a basic understanding of electronics.

But you are actually saying that it's possible that this kid built a clock that in no way resembles a bomb in the hopes that some insane dumbfuckery would happen and he'd get arrested and get some notoriety/attention? Come on, seriously? FFS you aren't any better than the idiots that arrested the kid.

 

[bozack]

Anyone that knows anything about electronics can tell that isn't a bomb. I assume that there is at least one teacher in the school that has at least a basic understanding of electronics.

But you are actually saying that it's possible that this kid built a clock that in no way resembles a bomb in the hopes that some insane dumbfuckery would happen and he'd get arrested and get some notoriety/attention? Come on, seriously? FFS you aren't any better than the idiots that arrested the kid.

It was more of a point about how we just don't know what people's motivations are when we jump to conclusions.

Can anyone say for certain that they arrested this kid because he was a muslim?

Until we get a teacher or a police officer that openly comes out and says that was their reasoning we won't know for certain.

From the stories it looks like at least two teachers and then a number of police officers saw the clock, the first teacher even told the kid to put it away.

 

[bozack]

This is the same school district where this happened:
http://irvingblog.dallasnews.com/20...board-on-islam-in-irving-isd-curriculum.html/



Nope, no islamophobia there!



Do you not see the inconsistency between saying that there's no way to know if him being a Muslim was the cause of what's happening there and then saying that you know him being a Muslim is the cause of what's happening in the media?



Is there even the tiniest shred of evidence that that's the case?

Again, its seemingly fine for you to jump to conclusions but not others...you're referencing a story from three years ago, maybe if the folks linked in that story were directly involved in this incident I might give you that, but they aren't

As I said above, without someone clearly coming out and saying we arrested him because he is a muslim everyone is just guessing and confirming their own biases.

Beyond the witnesses account and some old article of unrelated parties do you have any shred of evidence that he was arrested at least in part because he was muslim.

 

[bshole]

Anyone that knows anything about electronics can tell that isn't a bomb. I assume that there is at least one teacher in the school that has at least a basic understanding of electronics.

But you are actually saying that it's possible that this kid built a clock that in no way resembles a bomb in the hopes that some insane dumbfuckery would happen and he'd get arrested and get some notoriety/attention? Come on, seriously? FFS you aren't any better than the idiots that arrested the kid.

Agreed, the lack of any kind of explosive material is obvious. It is weird that non-tech people now equate circuit boards and LED displays as bombs. This kind of speaks to the incredible incompetence of this kid's teachers and the cops.

 

[mrjminer]

Agreed, the lack of any kind of explosive material is obvious. It is weird that non-tech people now equate circuit boards and LED displays as bombs. This kind of speaks to the incredible incompetence of this kid's teachers and the cops.

What I find weird is that you think the lack of any kind of explosive material is obvious. There could be explosive material anywhere inside of the case, underneath the padding, the exterior could be hollowed to have explosives built-in, could be liquid or solid explosives hidden around, etc.

The kid should have been suspended.

 

[fskimospy]

Again, its seemingly fine for you to jump to conclusions but not others...you're referencing a story from three years ago, maybe if the folks linked in that story were directly involved in this incident I might give you that, but they aren't

As I said above, without someone clearly coming out and saying we arrested him because he is a muslim everyone is just guessing and confirming their own biases.

I was pointing out your double standard, not mine. I believe the kid was arrested in significant part because he was Muslim. I also think that this got more press because he was Muslim. You think one without the other, despite the amount of evidence for both being identical.

I think the district's previous islamophobic actions are highly relevant. Why wouldn't they be?

Beyond the witnesses account and some old article of unrelated parties do you have any shred of evidence that he was arrested at least in part because he was muslim.

Are you asking me "so except for all that evidence do you have any evidence?"

 

[Indus]

from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry..._55f9dbc0e4b08820d917310e?utm_hp_ref=politics

Irving Mayor Defends School And Cops, Doesn't Apologize For Arrest Of Muslim Teen Over Clock

Irving, Texas Mayor Beth Van Duyne is defending law enforcement and school officials who were involved in the arrest and suspension of Ahmed Mohamed, a Muslim 14-year-old ninth-grader who brought a homemade clock to school that teachers mistook for a bomb.

"I do not fault the school or the police for looking into what they saw as a potential threat," Van Duyne wrote in a statement posted to her Facebook page Wednesday.

Van Duyne said school and law enforcement officials were simply following school protocols when a "possible threat" or "criminal act" is discovered.

"To the best of my knowledge, they followed protocol for investigating whether this was an attempt to bring a Hoax Bomb to a school campus," Van Duyne wrote. "I hope this incident does not serve as a deterrent against our police and school personnel from maintaining the safety and security of our schools."

Ahmed, who told The Dallas Morning News that he loves robotics and tinkering with gadgets, decided to build a clock by linking a circuit board, a power supply and a digital clock display together inside a pencil case. He thought he might impress some teachers by bringing the clock to school.

Instead, he found himself pulled out of class and taken to the principal's office, where he says he was threatened with expulsion and interrogated -- all the while insisting that he had, in fact, only built a clock. School officers sent him to a detention center, where they took his fingerprints and a mugshot. He was later released to his parents and all charges were dropped against him when police realized the clock wasn't a bomb after all.

Ahmed was suspended for three days from MacArthur High School by Irving School District administrators.

“We have all seen terrible and violent acts committed in schools," Van Duyne added. "Perhaps some of those could have been prevented and lives could have been spared if people were more vigilant."

Later, Van Duyne edited this portion of her Facebook statement, removing the language and replacing it with somewhat softer tones, but still offered no apology to Ahmed or his family, and refrained from using Ahmed's name. She instead referred to him as simply "the student."

"As a parent, I agree that if this happened to my child I would be very upset," Van Duyne wrote in an updated statement. "It is my sincere desire that Irving ISD students are encouraged to use their creativity, develop innovations and explore their interests in a manner that fosters higher learning. Hopefully, we can all learn from this week’s events and the student, who has obvious gifts, will not feel at all discouraged from pursuing his talent in electronics and engineering."

Meanwhile, other politicians like President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as well as high-profile scientists, have rallied around Ahmed and his passion for science.

The Dallas Morning News recently described Van Duyne as being "a hero among the fringe movement that believes Muslims -- a tiny fraction of the U.S. population -- are plotting to take over American culture and courts." This reputation ballooned earlier this year after she announced she was looking into rumors that a local mosque was attempting to establish the first court of "Sharia law," the Muslim code of law and morality, in Irving. Politifact later rated this claim as false, detailing that some regional Muslims were offering "Sharia-governed, non-binding mediation services" in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, including Irving, but no Sharia court was being opened in town. About a month later, she supported a bill that would forbid Texas judges from using foreign law in their rulings, which is already illegal.

Critics of Van Duyne call her actions anti-Islamic, but Van Duyne says she's simply "proud to be an American" and just supporting the constitutions of the United States and Texas.

Yep took 40 years to get people to apologize for internment for japanese during ww2. I can totally see 50 years later Texas paying 1 trillion in apologies.

 

[bshole]

What I find weird is that you think the lack of any kind of explosive material is obvious. There could be explosive material anywhere inside of the case, underneath the padding, the exterior could be hollowed to have explosives built-in, could be liquid or solid explosives hidden around, etc.

The kid should have been suspended.

LOL, and the wires to detonate the expolives are where? Are you of the opinion that explosives detonate themselves? It takes all of 3 seconds of looking at the picture to determine that your claim is nutty.

PS. I am very very attracted to the mayor.

 

[Darwin333]

It was more of a point about how we just don't know what people's motivations are when we jump to conclusions.

Can anyone say for certain that they arrested this kid because he was a muslim?

Until we get a teacher or a police officer that openly comes out and says that was their reasoning we won't know for certain.

From the stories it looks like at least two teachers and then a number of police officers saw the clock, the first teacher even told the kid to put it away.

I didn't mention anything about his religion. I've only argued against their stated reasons for arresting the kid.

 

[Darwin333]

What I find weird is that you think the lack of any kind of explosive material is obvious. There could be explosive material anywhere inside of the case, underneath the padding, the exterior could be hollowed to have explosives built-in, could be liquid or solid explosives hidden around, etc.

The kid should have been suspended.

Umm, did you look at the picture of the case a few posts above before you decided to post this ignorance?

There is also an obvious lack of a detonator or any wiring leading to this potentially hidden 2mm thick detonator along with the 2mm of potentially concealed explosives.

I doubt you could hide black cat firecrackers in it. And if you believe that he intended to either build a bomb or intentionally set off a bomb scare wouldn't you think he should be expelled? What school suspends someone whose intent is to either blow the school up or incite a panic/riot?

WTF is wrong with some of you people. We should be encouraging this kind of behavior from our kids, we are far enough behind the rest of the world in education as it is.

 

[Darwin333]

LOL, and the wires to detonate the expolives are where? Are you of the opinion that explosives detonate themselves? It takes all of 3 seconds of looking at the picture to determine that your claim is nutty.

PS. I am very very attracted to the mayor.

Careful, you know what they say about sticking your dick into crazy...

 

[woolfe9998]

I think the district's previous islamophobic actions are highly relevant. Why wouldn't they be?

I don't think your linked story says much about Islamaphobia in this particular school district. If you read your article closely, the allegation came up in a chain e-mail from a citizen. The board was undoubtedly concerned about negative publicity, so they looked into the matter. An apparently ultra-conservative who they appointed to look into it concluded that the curriculum wasn't pro-Islamic, and the matter was dropped. Anyway, even if we can detect Islamaphobia among one or more members of this school board, I fail to see what that has to do with the teacher and administrator at this particular school who decided to report the matter to the police. Guilt by association isn't a very strong argument.

What troubles me about the story that is the subject of this thread, and the way it is presented in the media, is the same thing that troubles me about most of these "bad behavior of school teachers and administrators" stories. The schools are precluded from providing their version of events because of student privacy laws. I would remind you that this comes up most often in cases which people on the political right champion in their crusade against public schools. It just so happens that the politics play opposite in this case, but the mechanics remain the same. An allegation is made by a student, the school does not and can not respond, and the media plays up a one-sided version which sounds awfully controversial and gets lots of attention.

In another article, a school official said that the media reports are "unbalanced" but that the school could not legally provide its version. This sounds familiar to anyone who follows these types of stories. We won't hear the school's version until the lawsuit, at which point the one-sided version has already been sold.

Did Islamaphobia play a role in the school's actions here? It's quite possible it played a role. It's also quite possible that something about the student's actual behavior played a role as well. We don't know what his responses were when asked questions about the clock. He might have been snarky, uncooperative, uninformative, etc. Perhaps he detected Islamaphobia in the teacher's initial suspicion and decided to teach them a lesson by being sarcastic or even cryptic. We don't know because the school's version is a black box for the time being.

What we do know is what Prophet1 said earlier - schools in general are hyper-vigilant because they want to avoid blame and liability. This is true across the board, whether the school is in Texas or California. While it isn't unreasonable to assume Islamaphobia played a role here, I can guaranty you that any ambiguity in a student's response to questions about this will lead to police involvement simply out of an abundance of caution.

I don't like jumping to conclusions without knowing all the facts. I'll just leave it at that.

 

[WHAMPOM]

What I find weird is that you think the lack of any kind of explosive material is obvious. There could be explosive material anywhere inside of the case, underneath the padding, the exterior could be hollowed to have explosives built-in, could be liquid or solid explosives hidden around, etc.

The kid should have been suspended.

You watch too many movies, bombs with exposed blinking red lights and count down timers don't exist for anything but the drama.

 

[WHAMPOM]

if I use the plug to scale it looks like its the size of a griddler or a larger appliance, when I think of a pencil box I think of something a good deal smaller, its not a fully size Samsonite but its not small either...

whatever though, the teacher over reacted, its not the first time something like this has happened, I remember a viral marketing campaign in boston which involved electronic signs in which a guy got arrested...chances are something like this will happen again.

If you use the plug to scale it,two inches long, I get about nine inches by eight inches, where are you looking?

 

[fskimospy]

I don't think your linked story says much about Islamaphobia in this particular school district. If you read your article closely, the allegation came up in a chain e-mail from a citizen. The board was undoubtedly concerned about negative publicity, so they looked into the matter.

People that work for local governments get letters from kooks constantly. They do not appoint special investigators to determine the veracity of crazed chain emails very frequently. If you believe the idea that not responding to an insane chain email about Muslims might give them negative publicity in their town, that speaks strongly to the disposition of the local citizens, of which the teaching staff is very likely part. (the city council also recently endorsed anti-sharia legislation)

I think you've strengthened my argument here.

An apparently ultra-conservative who they appointed to look into it concluded that the curriculum wasn't pro-Islamic, and the matter was dropped.

That the school board would appoint such a person is further evidence, however it's good to hear that both that guy and the board had the integrity to create and accept those results.

Anyway, even if we can detect Islamaphobia among one or more members of this school board, I fail to see what that has to do with the teacher and administrator at this particular school who decided to report the matter to the police. Guilt by association isn't a very strong argument.

Having members of the town and significant parts of the school board endorsing an islamophobic agenda lends credibility to the idea that the town itself harbors islamophobic tendencies. This isn't a courtroom, and as already mentioned it would be nearly impossible to prove barring a stunningly stupid admission on the part of school staff.

What troubles me about the story that is the subject of this thread, and the way it is presented in the media, is the same thing that troubles me about most of these "bad behavior of school teachers and administrators" stories. The schools are precluded from providing their version of events because of student privacy laws. I would remind you that this comes up most often in cases which people on the political right champion in their crusade against public schools. It just so happens that the politics play opposite in this case, but the mechanics remain the same. An allegation is made by a student, the school does not and can not respond, and the media plays up a one-sided version which sounds awfully controversial and gets lots of attention.

I agree this is an issue! If it turns out the kid was acting like it was a bomb or doing something else that's fine by me. I would prefer it in fact, because islamophobia sucks. I have not heard any statements by other students that such a thing took place, and they are off course not barred by any law from giving their side.

In another article, a school official said that the media reports are "unbalanced" but that the school could not legally provide its version. This sounds familiar to anyone who follows these types of stories. We won't hear the school's version until the lawsuit, at which point the one-sided version has already been sold.

Literally every potential defendant in the history of mankind has said that the accusations against them are unfair or omit important context. This is not useful information.

Did Islamaphobia play a role in the school's actions here? It's quite possible it played a role. It's also quite possible that something about the student's actual behavior played a role as well. We don't know what his responses were when asked questions about the clock. He might have been snarky, uncooperative, uninformative, etc. Perhaps he detected Islamaphobia in the teacher's initial suspicion and decided to teach them a lesson by being sarcastic or even cryptic. We don't know because the school's version is a black box for the time being.

Anything is possible. In this case, a kid who's part of the robotics club made an electronic clock. He showed it to his engineering teacher who thought it was cool, but advised him not to show it to other people. When the cops were called later by his English teacher, the police officer that showed up said "Yup, that's who I thought it was". That's also pretty shady.

As I said before, I am aware of no statements by any other witnesses that his behavior had anything to do with his arrest.

What we do know is what Prophet1 said earlier - schools in general are hyper-vigilant because they want to avoid blame and liability. This is true across the board, whether the school is in Texas or California. While it isn't unreasonable to assume Islamaphobia played a role here, I can guaranty you that any ambiguity in a student's response to questions about this will lead to police involvement simply out of an abundance of caution.

I don't like jumping to conclusions without knowing all the facts. I'll just leave it at that.

If more facts come out I'm comfortable with changing my conclusions. As they stand it looks pretty islamophobic to me.

 

[CitizenKain]

The kid should have been suspended.

Why? For what? Being brown with a circuit board?

 

[mrjminer]

LOL, and the wires to detonate the expolives are where? Are you of the opinion that explosives detonate themselves? It takes all of 3 seconds of looking at the picture to determine that your claim is nutty.

PS. I am very very attracted to the mayor.

What if the detonator was hidden inside one of the screw standoffs in the hinge? What if the circuit board has leads on the edges that complete another circuit built into the casing? Your claim is the nutty one, except about the mayor. She is a fox.

Umm, did you look at the picture of the case a few posts above before you decided to post this ignorance?

There is also an obvious lack of a detonator or any wiring leading to this potentially hidden 2mm thick detonator along with the 2mm of potentially concealed explosives.

I doubt you could hide black cat firecrackers in it. And if you believe that he intended to either build a bomb or intentionally set off a bomb scare wouldn't you think he should be expelled? What school suspends someone whose intent is to either blow the school up or incite a panic/riot?

WTF is wrong with some of you people. We should be encouraging this kind of behavior from our kids, we are far enough behind the rest of the world in education as it is.

I wouldn't encourage kids to mimic the look of a suitcase bomb from a movie. You are a fool to think someone couldn't rig up an explosive in the amount of space available.

You watch too many movies, bombs with exposed blinking red lights and count down timers don't exist for anything but the drama.

Yea, drama. You mean the kind of drama you could find on both real and hoax bombs, right? Or do you mean some special kind of drama that exists only in your illusory world where all bombs serve to only be discrete?

 

[SheHateMe]

What if the detonator was hidden inside one of the screw standoffs in the hinge?

But there wasn't a detonator. Once the cops found out the clock wasn't a bomb, they should have let the kid go. Instead, he was interrogated by 5 officers and was being detained at a juvenile facility and was not allowed to contact his parents.

Fuck everyone involved in this shit. I hope the kid gets into some sort of private school for STEM.

 

[woolfe9998]

People that work for local governments get letters from kooks constantly. They do not appoint special investigators to determine the veracity of crazed chain emails very frequently. If you believe the idea that not responding to an insane chain email about Muslims might give them negative publicity in their town, that speaks strongly to the disposition of the local citizens, of which the teaching staff is very likely part. (the city council also recently endorsed anti-sharia legislation)

I think you've strengthened my argument here.

The chain e-mail was circulated state wide. As you know, this is a conservative state where such allegations may stick. Your response of suggesting that this implicates a specific teacher in being Islamaphobic is not terribly logical. You might just as well argue "we all know this was Islamaphobia because it happened in Texas." The actual incident you linked doesn't really add to or strengthen that argument. It's still the same weak connection.

That the school board would appoint such a person is further evidence, however it's good to hear that both that guy and the board had the integrity to create and accept those results.

Unless the School Board was pretty certain how it would come out. The fact that this person was ultra-conservative strengthened the conclusion. Remember, what the school board did in effect was to debunk this e-mail.

Having members of the town and significant parts of the school board endorsing an islamophobic agenda lends credibility to the idea that the town itself harbors islamophobic tendencies. This isn't a courtroom, and as already mentioned it would be nearly impossible to prove barring a stunningly stupid admission on the part of school staff.

The bolded allegations don't necessarily follow from your article. You're over-reaching from the available information.

Literally every potential defendant in the history of mankind has said that the accusations against them are unfair or omit important context. This is not useful information.

Bad analogy, because criminal defendants are allowed to testify about their version of events. Schools cannot comment publicly on conversations between school employees and students. It's a fact that they could not legally provide their version here. I'm fairly certain you would find this fact relevant in a different sort of case where conservatives are attacking a public school for allegedly doing something inappropriate.

Anything is possible. In this case, a kid who's part of the robotics club made an electronic clock. He showed it to his engineering teacher who thought it was cool, but advised him not to show it to other people. When the cops were called later by his English teacher, the police officer that showed up said "Yup, that's who I thought it was". That's also pretty shady.

As I said before, I am aware of no statements by any other witnesses that his behavior had anything to do with his arrest.

The decision to call the police was based on communications between school employees and the student in question. Should there be a witness besides the student who isn't gagged like the school is? I don't know, but it isn't suspicious that no such witness exists. It's just a fact that we have only one version of conversations which were likely entirely between school staff and one particular student.

If more facts come out I'm comfortable with changing my conclusions. As they stand it looks pretty islamophobic to me.

Yeah, my opinion differs from yours only as a matter of degree. I wouldn't at all be surprised if Islamaphobia had something to do with this. But I'd rather not speculate without having both versions, especially because I have seen this too often, on P&N and elsewhere, where we get these stories about alleged bad behavior of teachers and school admins and only hear the student's side of the story.

I've also become extremely distrustful of the media lately. I think their status as a for profit business has made them an abject failure in providing anything resembling complete truth to their readers and viewers. Obviously government run media is unacceptable. That leaves the NPR not for profit model as the only viable model. The corporate media sucks, pretty much all the time. But that's a topic for another thread.

 

[Fern]

If this kid wasn't a muslim, literally nothing would have happened.

Was it also racism when the white kid was arrested for a bringing a plastic knife to school to use at lunchtime?

What about the kid that got into so much trouble over his pop tart looking like a gun after he bit off a chunk?

Or the one who brought along plain old aspirin and was essentially busted for violating the school's drug policy.

There are so many reoccurring examples of stupidity in the school system I think it unreasonable to jump to the conclusion that this was racism.

Likewise with police stupidity.

Geez, a neighborhood kid living directly across the street from me was charged with possessing WMD because the cops found a plastic bottle of gun powder used for black powder rifles in his bedroom.

Was that racism? If you think it was or wasn't based soley upon his race then the racist is you.

Fern

 

[HomerJS]

Was it also racism when the white kid was arrested for a bringing a plastic knife to school to use at lunchtime?

What about the kid that got into so much trouble over his pop tart looking like a gun after he bit off a chunk?

Or the one who brought along plain old aspirin and was essentially busted for violating the school's drug policy.

There are so many reoccurring examples of stupidity in the school system I think it unreasonable to jump to the conclusion that this was racism.

Likewise with police stupidity.

Geez, a neighborhood kid living directly across the street from me was charged with possessing WMD because the cops found a plastic bottle of gun powder used for black powder rifles in his bedroom.

Was that racism? If you think it was or wasn't based soley upon his race then the racist is you.

Fern

I guess this kid is a racist too...

"I felt like I was a criminal," the teenager said. "I felt like I was a terrorist. I felt like all the names I was called."

Hayes asked what he meant.

In middle school, Ahmed said, he had been called "bombmaker" and a "terrorist."

"Just because of my race and my religion," he said, adding that when he walked into the room where he was questioned, an officer reclined in a chair and remarked, "That's who I thought it was."

"I took it to mean he was pointing at me for what I am, my race," the freshman explained

http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/17/us/texas-student-ahmed-muslim-clock-bomb/index.html

I guess by that crack the cop meant "oh I thought he was a male" (in case you didn't know sarcasm)