Texas Police Arrest Kid For Building A Clock
from the this-is-infuriating dept
We talk a lot about police overreacting to things, but this takes things to a new and ridiculous level. The Dallas Morning News released a story last night about police in Irving, Texas, arresting 14-year old Ahmed Mohamed, a freshman in high school, for building a digital clock and bringing it in to school to show his teachers. Ahmed likes to tinker and build electronics. This is the kind of thing you'd think the school and the community would want to encourage. But, instead, he was arrested and sent to a juvenile detention center, suspended from school and the police say they may charge him for making a "hoax bomb." Except it's a clock. He never said it was a bomb. He never implied it was a bomb. Just some teachers and the police freaked out about it.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.The incredible thing is that the police flat out admit that he never claimed it was a bomb, but they're still considering charging him with making a hoax bomb.
“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.’”
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.Perhaps there was no broader explanation because none is needed.
“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.”
Even more ridiculous: they handcuffed this kid (wearing a NASA t-shirt, by the way) and walked him through the school as they took him away. This picture is shameful.
Ahmed's sister told me to post this. Yes this situation is real for those questioning. pic.twitter.com/Oxd0JxUS6O
— Prajwol/Ru (@OfficalPrajwol) September 16, 2015He’s vowed never to take an invention to school again.Curiosity killers.
The school has now doubled down on this move, by sending a letter to parents at the school congratulating themselves for this whole thing:
While we do not have any threats to our school community, we want you to be aware that the Irving Police Department responded to a suspicious-looking item on campus yesterday. We are pleased to report that after the police department's assessment, the item discovered at school did not pose a threat to your child's safety.Even worse... the school is using this as a "teaching moment" telling parents to tell their kids to report any "suspicious" things. Like brown kids being curious and inventing cool shit:
Our school is cooperating fully with the ongoing police investigation, and we are handling the situation in accordance with the Irving ISD Student Code of Conduct and applicable laws. Please rest assured that we will always take necessary steps to keep our school as safe as possible.
I recommend using this opportunity to talk with your child about the Student Code of Conduct and specifically not bringing items to school that are prohibited. Also, this is a good time to remind your child how important it is to immediately report any suspicious items and/or suspicious behavior they observe to any school employee so we can address it right away. We will always take necessary precautions to protect our students.And by "address" it, apparently, they mean arrest bright kids for being curious and gifted.
The whole "bomb hoax" thing based on authorities getting confused about a non-bomb reminds me of that time, back in 2007, when Cartoon Network tried to promote Adult Swim with light up boxes of various characters placed around Boston -- and because some people freaked out and the city was shut down, Boston's mayor declared the marketing stunt a "bomb hoax." Once again, if someone is building something that you mistake for a bomb, and they had no intention of passing it off as a bomb, nor does it actually look like a bomb, it's not a bomb hoax. At all. And you look ridiculous calling it out as such.
And, of course, you look that much more ridiculous when you not only overreact like this, but do it against a clearly intelligent and talented teenager who likes to tinker with electronics.
Update: A picture of the clock has now been released. Nothing about it changes the story at all.
.@IrvingPD: this is the homemade clock made by Ahmed Mohamed and brought to @IrvingISD High School. @NBCDFW pic.twitter.com/owUQbQLDQy
— Ellen Bryan (@EllenBryanNBC5) September 16, 2015
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: ahmed mohamed, arrested, bomb, clock, education, hoax, hoax bomb, irving, texas, tinkering
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Repeat after me students: 'The Authorities Are Never Wrong'
I think it's pretty obvious that they had determined before they ever talked to him that he was guilty, and they just wanted to trick and/or coerce him into 'admitting' it so they could use it to justify their actions. He seemed to have refused, and stuck to reality, which naturally just made them even more angry, hence the threat of ludicrous charges and the handcuffs through his school, punishment for not going along with the scenario they had already decided on.
They had decided on his guilt, how dare he contradict them and claim to be his innocent? /s
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Re: Repeat after me students: 'The Authorities Are Never Wrong'
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Having a picture of him with the much darker-skinned cop who was involved in all this totally undermines that whole narrative, but we'll just pretend that didn't happen. Nope, this is all about racism, folks!
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No, it doesn't.
First, there are more than two races in this world.
Second, bigotry is not limited to racism.
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Emphasis mine.
Let's put it this way, if I were a police officer who didn't know any of the following people, exactly which of these names give me the permission to assume they're bomb builders?
- Theodore Kaczynski
- Timothy McVeigh
- Ahmed Mohamed
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That would explain it just as much as him assuming the student based solely on his name.
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I was trying to say I didn't realize that Mason Wheeler is a racist. go figure. Where your from boy?
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Nowadays no one believes in witchcraft anymore, but have no fear, the ancient logic lives on in allegations of racism. Hooray for progress!
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Here's a way; Don't be a bigot in a public forum.
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"He said an officer he’d never seen before leaned back in his chair and remarked: “Yup. That’s who I thought it was.”"
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So....your contention is that an African American can't be racist against an Arab-American or a Persian-American? In other words, there's white people and then everything else is lumped together? I love when someone's claim that there's no racism in a story in itself shows their subtle racist bias....
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To think that people of the same "race" cannot be bigoted against each other is pretty dumb.
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I used to date a Chinese girl, and she used the term "Asian" freely to describe herself, her family, and her Chinese (and other Asian) friends. If that's a bigoted term, apparently no one told them...
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The point is, even if they're viewed as the same race, people can easily be bigoted against each other. They can't necessarily be racist toward each other, but that's far from the only type of bigotry.
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a person who strongly and unfairly dislikes other people, ideas, etc. : a bigoted person;
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bigot
Lack of the word "race" in this definition is quite noticeable
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(Note for the sarcasm-impaired: I'm blonde, and I do a lot of hobby work in a field of computing that was single-handedly invented by a woman. That doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of people out there dumb enough to believe every word of that up there.)
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That one or more of the officers involved in this happened to be of a descent that provides them with a darker skin tone than their victim is irrelevant. Nothing about that keeps them from being racist against people of arabic descent.
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Heck I had one science teacher for two years who had a set requirement for her class of one project every 6 weeks. Bonus points for a show and tell model you made. Every class made an Estes rocket and every class went out side to actually fire it and watch it go up.
I wonder what happened to all those bright and curious students making things on their own time?
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As a parent, can I see the list of "items... that are prohibited"? I'd be pretty shocked if "clock" is actually on there.
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"anything we decided is not allowed on the spur of the moment, or if we have had a bad day and want to take it out on a student"
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The schools reaction to it did however endanger the child.
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The school's reaction to it did more to endanger the child's safety...it endangered the safety of us all. We need kids who think outside of the box, who explore new ideas and new concepts, that enjoy STEM and want to make the world a better place. Now the other children in the class have learned not to question authority, not do anything "out-of-the-ordinary," not show off their intelligence and ingenuity; take your Soma, do your job, keep your head down, and don't worry about your class and social status...
Brave New World indeed.
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The moral of this story...
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High school aged me: "That's because you're a ******* idiot." (That would only be said if I could stop from laughing in his face.)
There are web sites devoted to allowing former students to discuss the incompetence of the administration in my high school, yet even they would never have done something this stupid. The closest Ahmed came to making a mistake was showing it to his English teacher and not his Science teacher (if they have a Science teacher, I guess this is in Texas...).
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The charge: Conspiring to create a situation where school officials could (and therefore do) make themselves look like incompetent idiots.
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His response should have been - "Great, movie bombs never cause any real damage. Can I go now, or is there something in the real world to discuss?"
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Texan here
I do live & work in the area!
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I'm not a lawyer or anything, but isn't (shouldn't?) part charging someone with making a hoax bomb be, you know, actually hoaxing people into thinking it's a bomb in the first place?
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both like to be authoritarian (tell you what you can say or do), and the nationalism (blind followers) can easily be traded out for the definition of zealotry (blind followers) without even altering the meaning in any significant way.
If Nation A was a Fascist State, and Nation B was a PC state, both having laws to keep in that way, you will find that over handed responses to stupid stuff JUST LIKE THIS ONE would happen. There is truly NO fundamental DIFFERENCE to anyone that seeks wisdom between the two!
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If he said it was a clock and everyone except the police thought it was a clock, then where's a "hoax"? He wasn't trying to fool anyone and no one was fooled.
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Someone help Ahmed set up a Kickstarter
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But if he has photocopies if his plans, including some pictures of the finished product, that might be something he can sell...
I'd like to know if they're still using the 555 timer nowadays.
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Funny expression.
Believe me, nothing is more terrifying than a war...
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3 days after he does that the headline would be: Ahmed Mohamed arrested for selling bomb-making instructions
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Press Opportunity
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Before I opened the article, one thought crossed my mind: "They're not white."
Way to go, Texas. So proud the state, school district, and the brain dead public must be to think this behavior against a child is justified.
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I only wish I were joking.
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As a recall, a lot of that took place well away from NYC, probably driven by the fact that a community centre with a prayer room was called a "mosque" by the media and a building several blocks away from Ground Zero was referred to as if they were building on the actual rubble.
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Actually, I'm more worried that he stops building _anything_ now. Sounds like he had a promising future.
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Well deserved 15 minutes of fame.
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Raspberry Pi's and Arduino's now illegal...
My father and I built a depth sounder and a radio direction finder in our basement from a kit (Heathkit) a long time ago. Either of those would probably set off terroristic tinglings in likely both the police and school administrators in today's environment. They were for our sailboat and were used for navigational purposes, strictly recreational, and actually kept us safe more than once.
People complain about student test scores in math and science while at the same time doing everything in their power to discourage activities that might enhance curiosity in those fields. Look they are programing a computer, they must be up to something nasty. Don't get me started on chemistry.
I worry for future generations, for these and a lot of other reasons.
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You've all been silent on over a MILLION Afghans and Iraqis murdered in illegal wars based on phony claims of WMD and "terrorist" threats, but now you're taking up for one Muslim boy?
Yes, that's harsh. But it's true and connected. Techdirt (and apparently most of its fanboys) claims anyone questioning 9/11 is a conspiracy kook.
This is about attempt # fifteen... Looks as though each comment is being okayed again...
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Re: You've all been silent on over a MILLION Afghans and Iraqis murdered in illegal wars based on phony claims of WMD and "terrorist" threats, but now you're taking up for one Muslim boy?
Probably you, oh and Mason Wheeler.
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Re: Re: Re: You've all been silent on over a MILLION Afghans and Iraqis murdered in illegal wars based on phony claims of WMD and "terrorist" threats, but now you're taking up for one Muslim boy?
Liar. You said that the presence of the black cop proved that there was no racism in this case.
Once again, Mason Wheeler shits the bed. Same shit, different day...
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Silence on Techdirt.
I've pointed out plenty of times how the US terrorizes the world while pointing at radicals who terrorize their own nations. It's still going on. There's little more to be said but to say it's still going on and it's not going to stop and that we've lost any kind of moral high-ground over it.
We're more savage than the savages. We just have spiffier (faux) laurels and chalkier togas.
But 9/11 is no more evident to be more than it appears than the Lincoln assassination. Still, it appears pretty damning to the US given like Lincoln and Kennedy we tried to cover it up anyway. But CIA trained Mujaheddin stealing some plains to suicide attack buildings because a Saudi rebel prince was pissed at our continuous sanctions and bombing campaigns over Mideastern oil? You don't need a worse conspiracy than that to prove the ruthlessness of the United States.
In the meantime, you don't have to be brown skinned to be kicked if you're a smart kid who builds things, and you don't have to be smart to be kicked if you're a kid who looks different than the white mainstream. Poor Ahmed Mohamed got it coming in two ways, and now he's learned beyond a shadow of a doubt that the authorities are his enemy.
So when he starts designing new bleeding edge tech, it's not going to be Texas who benefits.
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Re: You've all been silent on over a MILLION Afghans and Iraqis murdered in illegal wars based on phony claims of WMD and "terrorist" threats, but now you're taking up for one Muslim boy?
No we haven't. We just don't rant like morons on sites that have nothing to do with such subjects.
"But where have you been against the insanity of the past 14 years in which your gov't lied about WMD and Muslim "terrorists" to illegally invade and murder over a million people?"
Places other than tech-focussed opinion blogs, such as polling stations, political venues and physical demonstrations. You know, where the opinion not only matters, it's actually relevant to the conversation.
"Techdirt (and apparently most of its fanboys) claims anyone questioning 9/11 is a conspiracy kook."
No, just you. But that's because you're clearly insane on every topic.
"This is about attempt # fifteen... Looks as though each comment is being okayed again..."
So, you're still too dumb to work out the posting system here? Figures.
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He was right when he said it looks like a "movie" bomb but those never hurt anyone. Putting a clock on a bomb is just cinematic bs to give some suspense.
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Internet to the rescue
The kids could make little robots that could picket at the front of the school with little signs, "Clocks unite -- at 2:37."
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for the intended purposes.
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If all Muslims were not evil terrorists there would be no justification for the pointless security theatre
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Suspicious behavior
Does that include totally clueless teachers and administrators posing as intelligent people?
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Stupid in Texas
so if calling it something makes it a bomb (even if its not)
then texas school officials must be insane yes they are frickin crazy lets get them evaluated because I say they are unfit to teach
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Updated with picture
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24 on domestic policy.
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A bomb is a clock with an alarm and something to burn.
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The police would rather make up fake charges to cover up their own mistake.
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Am I missing something....
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Nothing like giving power hungry lunatics and murderers a badge and a gun and telling them do whatever you like with next to no consequences
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Looking back, we began our homeschooling path because we taught all of our kids baby sign language. This gave them tools to communicate even when they could not enunciate words. Nothing is better than the DVS's from:
signingtime.com
Our thought process at the time was why stop teaching them, so we didnt. We are not overtly opposed to public schools it is just that we can do a better job.
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So ummm, clocks are prohibited in Texas schools?
How do they tell time, a sundial? No wait. That would be prohibited too because it has a sharp point.
jesus. What idiots.
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The ignorant wants to bring us down to their ever declining level.
Growing up on a ranch and being a geek, I always had a .22 shell or 10 on me, had some sort of device with switches and LEDs that I made out of Radio Electronics or form Forrest Mims books from Radio shack or a project out of QST. Made a gun rack in shop class. One day we all brought our main hunting rifle to school for a special class on the care on them. No one was scared, no thought of threatening anyone even in jest. No parents, admins or teachers freak out.
This indecent is quite upsetting as it seems like we have less and less intelligent educators and authority figures and more without any common sense.
If these educators are the ones responsible for our future scientists and leaders, it in no wonder why most people in the Unites States could not pass this relatively simple quiz .
I hope my concern that our society will go the way of others who lock up the intellectuals and scientists because those in power feel threatened as they do not understand.
The question is, where is it truly breaking down and how do we fix it? Can we?
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I really hope it had three red tubes attached to it.
Practical jokes by arab people, he should have turned this into something funny.
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Clueless School Administrators
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Now, add a prevalence of emotional thinking to the mix and anything and everything is scary. Feeling safe is the goal, not real safety.
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oh shit they will shoot Woz!
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"You know those cops in texas are right! We can't tell bombs from clocks. Add clocks to the banned on airplanes list."
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motive
YESTERDAY!
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sodler skill badge
and give him a solder - Skill badge, or a blowj0b or something...
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Equal opportunity idiocy and fear mongering
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james bond
The morons would be certain it was a RUSSIAN NUCLEAR BOMB!
the bomb disposal squad would be literally ROFL
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http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/obama-invites-suspended-muslim-teen-to-the-white-house/a r-AAenDFU?li=BBgzzfc
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How can we encourage STEM
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"Jordan, a 49-year-old college graduate, took the exam in 1996 and scored 33 points, the equivalent of an IQ of 125. But New London police interviewed only candidates who scored 20 to 27, on the theory that those who scored too high could get bored with police work and leave soon after undergoing costly training."
Because, we don't want heavily armed individuals interacting with the public to be intelligent. Nice to see the consequences of this policy in action.
"Looks like a bomb"... Cop looks like an idiot, and sometimes looks aren't deceiving.
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The school was right
Second, the kid didn't "invent" or "build" a clock. In the first interview I found on the story, he "rebuilt" a digital clock.
From the picture, he broke the casing off a digital alarm clock and just changed the display to a larger one (if that - it may have been a large-display clock to begin with).
HIS claim is that he put it in a "pencil box". He must have some huge pencils if that's a pencil box.
This was the FIRST TIME he'd brought in a "project" (it wasn't a project, he did this all on his own).
His FIRST PERIOD sci/tech instructor told him not to show it to anyone else, and he LEFT THE BATTERY IN IT.
His SECOND PERIOD English teacher heard the alarm go off and then he "showed it to her". That's not a clock if the alarm is going off, it's a damned trigger device.
Race card? Yeah, it was played. BY HIM. Muslim kid brings countdown device in a briefcase to school with big LED numbers? Uh-huh, he never, ever, thought that might be taken as a threat by anyone.
Expect that if the gag order is lifted on the school we find out that he was getting smacked around by a few bullies on a daily basis and "built" this to "scare" them.
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Re: The school was right
His FIRST PERIOD sci/tech instructor told him not to show it to anyone else, and he LEFT THE BATTERY IN IT.
So the 1st period instructor certainly must not've thought it was a bomb...the battery being in it is irrelevant, if he only asked him not to SHOW it.
That's not a clock if the alarm is going off, it's a damned trigger device.
Is the thing next to your bed that wakes you up in the morning ALSO a "damned trigger device?"
Muslim kid brings countdown device in a briefcase to school with big LED numbers?
And by "countdown device" you mean something similar to the thing that wakes you up in the morning?
Using arbitrary definitions to fit some bullshit narrative doesn't make it any more believable. If you're so fucking scared of clocks, perhaps you should set an example and get rid of every single "trigger device," "countdown device" or whatever the fuck else you think you should call a "clock" in order to defend school administrators who are incapable of utilizing "common sense" (AKA "material support for terrorists" in your fucked up world).
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Re: The school was right
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Re: Re: The school was right
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Re: The school was right
I can understand one point, which is acting on the beeping device. If I were a teacher I might be curious.
The real trouble started when he showed the teacher the clock. If I was suspicious enough and saw it, and saw the obvious microcontroller setup a million hobbyists have with no explosives in sight I'd send him on his way.
We even have a picture now. It doesn't look like anything dangerous. It's worrying that people think this was remotely an adequate response.
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Re: Re: The school was right
So he may have told the English teacher and the cops that it was "just a clock". What did he tell his friends - or his "enemies" it was? He's fourteen and apparently a nerd. The jocks are most likely making his school life miserable, and have been for some time - we must have more nerds here than just me, remember 8th grade?
I'm usually the first to jump all over heavy-handed idiocy, especially from LEO's or self-appointed "gods" (educators).
We're hearing one side, and some Islam Defense group jumped on this almost as soon as it happened. And as is happening here, the bulk of the "comments" on it are going to be racist - while ignoring what happened, the intent behind it, and, most importantly, cui bono.
We're already seeing the latter right here - all the calls that the kid should get a free ride at some tech school.
Taking the screws out (or just bashing the casing off with a hammer) of an alarm clock isn't "inventing" or "creating". What was this "project" SUPPOSED to be? He didn't "build" anything, he just re-cased a clock. Nobody assigned this "project" to him, he did it on his own. Also, if you watch the video(s) of how creative he is, he's not only holding the soldering iron incorrectly, he's jabbing it at the legs of surface-mount components.
C'mon, apply some damned logic to this, not just knee-jerk "Texas!" "racist", "anti-muslim" rhetoric.
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Re: Re: Re: The school was right
THAT kind of "logic?"
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Re: Re: Re: Re: The school was right
Run the wires from the alarm on any clock (even if you don't recase it first) or from the speaker on a cell phone and you've got a trigger - now all you need is a charge.
Why'd the kid do it? Re-case a clock with a large digital display and bring it to school?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The school was right
Paranoia is NOT a desirable trait, despite what you may think personally.
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Re: Re: Re: The school was right
As for what it's for, maybe he just wanted to do it? It's one of the most common electronics projects and he could've just wanted to show people a cool thing.
I didn't even mention racism or anything of the sort. I simply don't see any reason as to why the issue escalated to what it did.
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Re: Re: Re: The school was right
He has the proper attitude to be there: he likes to tinker with things, even if he's doing so clumsily.
Most people, including adults, don't know how to do so. Well, even changing the batteries of their clocks might be an issue for them.
Damn, some don't even know how to set the alarm of their clocks (or for that matter, use their own microwave).
If I was the principal of a tech school, I'd prefer people like him that are curious than people with good grades, that are good at studying, and that's it.
Those are the kind of people that invent things later on, even if now he's just recasing a clock.
Btw, I don't know you, but I don't know many kids that know how to use a soldering iron; or that even have touched one. Or adults, for that matter.
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Re: The school was right
Look it up, listen to it - and then do what it says Bamboo Harvester.
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Re: The school was right
I dunno if it's different for circuit boards, but I use the term "personal project" (or simply "project") all the time to describe programming work I'm doing on my own, and so do plenty of other programmers.
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Re: Re: The school was right
He did it on his own. It wasn't a school project or assignment. It was the VERY FIRST such time he'd brought anything in to "show" people.
And all he did was knock the case off an existing clock and remount (apparently just the display) in another case.
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Re: Re: Re: The school was right
So what?
Is he limited to performing tasks that are solely assigned by the school?
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Re: The school was right
Bullshit, if that was the case, we would now by now from external sources (classmates, parents, etc.), unless you alredy know that he is "invisible" to the rest of the school because he has no friends and no one has ever interacted with him, at all.
tl;dr
"Authority is NEVER WRONG" /s
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Re: Re: The school was right
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Re: Re: The school was right
Give it a week or two. Right now, all you're going to hear is thunder about how it only happened because the kid is a muslim.
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Re: Re: Re: The school was right
So much for your theory.
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Re: Re: Re: The school was right
What year you live in? Are you seriously telling me that this wouldn't be known already in any social media?
I guess we can wait a week or two to realize nobody around him has access to any freaking social media platform so your BS theory can be true.
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Re: The school was right
Hmmm...wonder if that's the result of your "gag order being lifted?"
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As one of the kids who DID get "smacked around by bullies on a daily basis"...
Most victims of bullies are too lawful for their own good do respect the lives and rights of others, often including the bullies that assault them. And the weakness and infrequency of reprisal against bullies and the society that enables them allows for the community to pay lip-service to stopping minor-on-minor assault without actually doing anything.
If kids actually did build real bombs and resorted to real murder and real terror when they've had enough, maybe society would actually look towards causes of child-on-child violence and not simply disparage the victims for being small and weak.
Of course, part of the problem is that like birds or sharks in a frenzy, when someone does show weakness, our species has a tendency to swarm and peck them to death, as was shown to be the case here. Absent in the reports is a single advocate for Ahmed noting that all he built was a timepiece, and the key part of a bomb is a payload.
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If that image is true and not something that the police cobbled not to look like the idiots they are.
Well, I conclude that it isn't a bomb.
You see: THERE ARE NO FREAKING RED AND BLUE CABLES TOGETHER.
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Fire the entire faculty at that school because they obviously lied to get their jobs.
I'd also arrest the police officers involved because they are prejudicial hate mongers who also appear to have no functioning neural capacity.
Being smarter than everyone at the school and in that local police department isn't a crime, however, it should be. Not for the smart student, but for the idiots running the school and police department.
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Ridiculous!
What the hell happened to common sense and using that grey matter between your ears? I feel sorry for kids today that have to go through all this ridiculous crap while just trying to get an education. Most are probably just praying for a good old fashioned bully than having to deal with this.
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/sarcasm
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My first thought on reading this story
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Idiots Rule in Irving Texas
Idiots Rule
These idiots have acted solely upon their base/uninformed opinions and personal biases to conspire in attempting to destroy the life of Ahmed Mohamed a fourteen year old student.
Is the local prosecutor going to allow the cretinous know-nothings of the Irving police department to bring charges and destroy Ahmed Mohamed's young life for the audacity of building a clock at home and bringing it to school?
Every last one of the tax-feeding cretins involved should be given a clock built by Ahmed Mohamed, as a parting gift, and then be summarily fired.
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If the clock happened to be a bomb, and the school did nothing about it, then everyone would be up in arms about why the school didn't do anything. Now, schools across the country are going to be more hesitant to accuse students of bringing in weapons.
Ahmed was released after this whole thing was cleared up. Can we stop painting everything in this world about race and bigotry?
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Re:
Seems like they came to the conclusion pretty quickly that this wasn't a threat, yet continued anyways.
Schools across the country are administered by idiots, who clearly lack critical thinking skills, and backed by police who lack the same. You should be more worried about the fact that our children are being educated by paranoid, mindless idiots.
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Re:
Sure, but ignoring the problem isn't going to make the City of Irving's property taxes go down after this kid makes bank on a lawsuit.
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Because obviously bombs beep.
Now, schools across the country are going to be more hesitant to accuse students of bringing in weapons.
One could only friggin' hope.
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Re:
If you are released then obviously it doesn't matter that your rights were violated and the police knowingly broke laws to ensure that the chance you might be a dangerous criminal that had to be treated as such.
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Re:
You say that like it is a bad thing.
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Irving ISD: Where Children Come First
Clearly, the school did not believe it was a "weapon". At most it "looked like" a weapon. Is the Administration so unable to enforce its own policies that it needs to call the cops even for items that "look like", but it knows are not, weapons?
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Texas Law
§ 46.08. HOAX BOMBS. (a) A person commits an offense if the person knowingly manufactures, sells, purchases, transports, or possesses a hoax bomb with intent to use the hoax bomb to:
(1) make another believe that the hoax bomb is an explosive or incendiary device; or
(2) cause alarm or reaction of any type by an official of a public safety agency or volunteer agency organized to deal with emergencies.
(b) An offense under this section is a Class A misdemeanor.
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Re: Texas Law
I'm pretty sure the reaction he was looking for was Hey, that's really neat! not TERRRRRRIST!
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Irving PD Statement
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Re: Irving PD Statement
In this case the students rights went out the window the moment the police got involved instead of going their jobs they chose to intimidate and try and coerce a minor. Who refused to say what they wanted him to and thus arrested him.
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Point of clarity
I am a nerd as well and was bullied in middle school, because I wore thick glasses and read books all the time, however it only took one shot from the binding of a paperback to the bridge of the nose to stop the school bully from picking on me and EVERY other nerd/bookworm in school. the bully later killed himself in a drunk driving accident, Karma really is a bitch!!
I can understand the school thinking this "may" be a bomb in the making but it really none of there business if they are NOT experts in the field.
The other point is, if it was a bomb the "beeping" would have been an explosion and the Teacher would not have had a chance to see the clock in the first place.
Some of us nerds like to get extra credit in classes we enjoyed.
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Re: Point of clarity
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police chief had dropped criminal charges against Ahmed Mohamed
mayor worries that Ahmed Mohamed's arrest will negatively impact town police
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Re: police chief had dropped criminal charges against Ahmed Mohamed
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this IS the schooling goal: to make children alike
and they act as they have no idea this is exactly what schooling is for:
https://youtu.be/G3nVwrSk1p4
https://youtu.be/aCPFHaC2tTo
https://youtu.be/McVUkWKEGJk
please go to the white house and to facebook and explain them on live camera the the "Six Functions of Education"
http://www.wesjones.com/gatto1.htm
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Re: this IS the schooling goal: to make children alike
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Stereotypes and Cognative bias
There's a common phenomenon now that our zoos have viewing tunnels with thick windows: Lionesses trying to eat babies. That's not what's really happening. The lioness' facial and body language is anything but hostile or predatory (and zoologists think the lionesses recognize the toddlers as some sort of cub...thing and want to sniff at and maybe even protect it.) Still guests commonly think lion >> big cat >> predator >> eats things >> trying to eat baby.
I suspect that's what's going on here. Giving our Irving teachers, administrators and police officers the benefit of the doubt, they saw a brown kid named Ahmed Muhammed who had built a what was an important component of a bomb, in fact, the most recognizable component, we in the US have been conditioned to think brown Muslim Arab >> Terrorist, ergo it follows that when a brown Muslim Arab teenager creates a thing that could be used as the component of a bomb that he's an adolescent terrorist turning into an adult one, much like a kitten disemboweling a stuffed catnip toy with its hind legs, in preparation for doing the same with live prey.
I don't think anyone actively thought it through to this degree of detail, but our brains look for patterns like this and may have recognized a pattern that is consistent with normal zoological development, even though we as a species have a more sophisticated development process.
This might have been the pattern they were recognizing when they panicked were trying to affirm when they separated him from parents and advocates and tried to force him to sign a confession. I suspect that these people felt as a deep level that he was obviously practicing for growing up to become a terrorist.
To get beyond this presumption people have to actively employ reason. They have to consciously think things like:
~ Ahmed's name, color and religion do not necessarily correlate to how his tinkering is applied.
~ Clocks are used for many things other than setting off bombs. In fact, very few clocks are used to set off bombs.
~ A boy making an electronic clock does not necessarily have the ambition of making more clocks or clock-related devices, rather he might go on to make other useful electronic devices not related to clocks or bombs.
It's easy to conclude that the boy is a terrorist, or a terrorist-in-training.
It's difficult to decide to disregard some indicators that the boy might be a terrorist-in-training and that he has yet to make life choices which will very probably not lead to actual terrorism.
I don't have a solution for this. It would be nice to only hire rational people for teachers, administrators and law enforcement and to encourage the human species to seek to deescalate situations like this, even when a kid does make a hoax bomb or blow up the toilets with by flushing dry ice (which has happened in schools without police involvement).
But, I think, we're going to just need to be aware that this is a very specific way in which humans are often stupid.
Also, As was pointed out to me by a friend, Ahmed is one of the lucky ones. He didn't sign anything incriminating when he was cornered. He's charming enough to look good on social media. His story caught the attention of news and some major figures. Plenty more kids get buried when a grown-up perceives them as a threat to themselves or to society, and their lives get ruined, and if they don't turn into casualties, they do turn into terrorists*, only not necessarily the bomb-wielding Arab kind.
* Actually terrorists are a specific kind of criminal who engages in mass lethal attacks for political cause, we just like to use it a lot for hyperbole (e.g. pick-pocketing = terrorism) and I was using it as hyperbole in this instance. When we ruin kids lives and they survive, they just tend to become menaces to society that traffic in sex and drugs and murder and fill our impacted jail cells. But that's not terror, just crime.
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ATF logic
But simply having a few electronic components wired together does not even come close to making a working bomb. Unless of course a person could be charged with building a PARTIAL BOMB (timer without any explosive) in the same way that possessing a tiny part of a banned machinegun (i.e., drop-in autoshear) carries the same penalty as having the complete gun. That's ATF logic for you, and if applied here then perhaps having just a single component such as a timing mechanism (or wires ... or even a case to hold it) capable of being used to construct a bomb could count the same as having a complete bomb. As ridiculous as it seems, that's exactly the way gun laws work, or at least the way the ATF creatively interprets gun laws.
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Do the mental gymnastics to overlook obvious racism hurt much?
This happened in a city where the mayor played the ZOMG SHARIA LAW WILL TAKE OVER THE NATION card.
She sat in a city meeting and said that everyone had a right to let council know how they felt, and then backhanded them with but you can't bring your laws here to the applause of the terrified of brown people who support her.
If they thought for a second it was a fucking bomb, why did they not evacuate?
If they thought for a second it was a fucking bomb, why did the bomb squad not get called?
If they thought for a second it was a fucking bomb, why did they leave him in classes with the damn thing sitting in the office when he could use his mind to trigger it at any time?
If they thought for a second it was a fucking bomb, why did they toss it in the cop car and drive away with it?
If they thought for a second it was a fucking bomb, it was only after the fact when someone pointed out how horribly they fucked this whole thing up.
The crime was scaring someone who on edge expecting that one of the brown kids would bomb the school to overthrow the country. They are being wound up in a political game, by those who don't believe the couched hatred they babble about. Fear gets asses in voting booths, and they were hoping for a lovely story about how they stopped the evil brown kid from doing something horrible and instead ended up very possibly violating a students rights, exposing the rampant racism, and the small minds who will use whatever power they can get to shove those who are different down.
Can we just admit that most of us know very little about those who are different than us, and assume different is bad. We are being fed a steady stream of ZOMG by the media, and just assuming all of these people are like others who have done horrible things who happen to be the same color or have the same faith. If one were to suggest that all Christians were evil people who invaded lands and killed those who were different in anyway, you'd be told off... but I'm just judging them by the Crusades... like people keep judging millions of people by the actions of a few.
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In China, white is the color of death.
Gonna take the non-whites a few more centuries to catch up, let alone exceed the white guy horror.
Then again, with the Five Eyes White Guys working their whiles behind the scenes, its is very likely that the non-whites will never catch up.
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The White Menace
Not because I feel the need to defend the white menace, but point out that color isn't the factor power is.
We got there first when it came to ranching, steel and firearms. We were Martians, regarding the Earth with envious eyes and drawing our plans to conquer it. But if China was on the ball, or South Africa got lucky, it be them and we'd associate conquest with their race.
Human beings are not angels. We're beasts not even slightly less beastly than our Chimpanzee cousins. We struck gold with our fabulous cerebellums and took this tool thing to truly amazing levels. But that doesn't make us the noble masters of technology that we are so fond of imagining us to be. It makes us savage beasts with guns.
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Re: The White Menace
However, that does not change the simple fact that we white guys are still - according to the record - the nastiest bunch of bastards this earth has ever seen - so far. :)
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Re: Re: The White Menace
We can only wonder what might have become of the world if the Welsh or Scots or Irish armies had defeated the English all those centuries ago.
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Re: Re: Re: The White Menace
Because we let the rich write history, its not part of our general knowledge base that once the Empire gets established, only the rich, white, english-speaking people and their rich, foreign-speaking, non-white partners, share the wealth stolen from the rest of the world, not the general white, english-speaking riff raff that supported the empire in its rise to power.
The reason rich people keep doing this is simply because the rest of us non-rich folks, simply never learn the lesson.
The Five Eyes will of course succeed in establishing its control over the resources of earth, but because it is composed of nothing but the rich, it will bring about the entropic end of this era's civilizations, through greed, selfish self-aggrandizement and childish irresponsibility, just as every previous empire-group has done in the past.
But because this group has the power of technology on its side, it has the unique potential and likely probability of bringing the entire human civilization to its knees, and possibly beyond.
Since the populations of earth will do nothing to stop this process, only time will tell whether we get to try it all again or not.
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