It's easy picking in this day and age. 

 

Actually, his parents are the ones that first played the race card.

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world.  Those who understand binary and those who don't.

Better safe than sorry?

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 Some of the articles that I saw regarding this bring up the fact that the kid is Muslim and that it's a race issue.

I don't think it's racial at all. Just people being stupid and hyper-sensitive. As soon as they verified that it was not a bomb by, you know, asking what it was, Ahmed should have been sent back to class with a pat on the back and a "nice work" from the principal.

 

Better safe than sorry?

Better smart than stupid.

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I don't think it's racial at all. Just people being stupid and hyper-sensitive. As soon as they verified that it was not a bomb by, you know, asking what it was, Ahmed should have been sent back to class with a pat on the back and a "nice work" from the principal.

 

Better smart than stupid.

 

Maybe it was stupid, but I cant blame the teacher for wanting to ensure the safety of her students.

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Maybe it was stupid, but I cant blame the teacher for wanting to ensure the safety of her students.

You must be missing the part where they arrested him because that is different than what you said. 

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You must be missing the part where they arrested him because that is different than what you said. 

 

What do you mean? They arrested him because they thought he brought a bomb to school. Is that not the proper precaution to take when you feel the safety of the school is threatened? You arrest/detain the possible assailant? Especially when its a bomb threatening the safety? Maybe I am misunderstanding what you are stating.

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Here's a picture of the clock. Very easy to see why they thought is could have been a bomb.

 

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You know trouble is right around the corner when your best friend tells you to hold his beer!!

What do you mean? They arrested him because they thought he brought a bomb to school. Is that not the proper precaution to take when you feel the safety of the school is threatened? You arrest/detain the possible assailant? Especially when its a bomb threatening the safety? Maybe I am misunderstanding what you are stating.

Given the chance to inspect the item, get corroboration from the other teachers who had seen it, and hear the kid’s story, they opted to have Ahmed handcuffed and led from the school to a detention facility and interrogated. He was then suspended.

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Better safe than sorry?

 

Not at all.  More like ignorance and knee jerk reaction from school officials as well as the police.

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world.  Those who understand binary and those who don't.

Here's a picture of the clock. Very easy to see why they though is could have been a bomb.

 

 

Unless you are familiar with electronics I could easily see someone mistaken this for a bomb.

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Unless you are familiar with electronics I could easily see someone mistaken this for a bomb.

Sure that's understandable but once you realize it's not a bomb perhaps arresting and suspension are not the best course of action?

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And the school district just got the ultimate smackdown from the highest level: President Obama has invited Ahmed Mohamed, the clock's creator, to the White House.

 

Take that, school district.

Conservative Blog Headlines: President Obama meets with Suspected Bomb Maker >_>


They ended up punishing him for a 'hoax bomb'.  Police say that he wasn't more forthcoming other than saying "It's a clock."  I can only imagine how that interrogation went.


Police: WHAT IS THIS?!


Ahmed: A clock.


Police: What does it do?


Ahmed: It... tells time?


Apparently the police chief said that this was the sort of thing people shouldn't bring to school.  -_-


I asked my wife what she thought about all this.  She said "If the clock went off in my classroom, I might ask him to turn it off.  If he showed it to me, and told me it was a clock I might ask him to show me how it works, and what made him take an interest in it.  Then I'd probably remind him not to let it go off in class, and send him on his way.  If he was evasive about it, I might ask the engineer teacher, or one of the AP's about it."

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I was wrong about Trent Baalke. 

Given the chance to inspect the item, get corroboration from the other teachers who had seen it, and hear the kid’s story, they opted to have Ahmed handcuffed and led from the school to a detention facility and interrogated. He was then suspended.

 

Maybe if it was something like a knife they can plod around doing an investigation. When you think a bomb, which could easily kill thousands at a populated school, is on the premise you take extraordinary actions.

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Sure that's understandable but once you realize it's not a bomb perhaps arresting and suspension are not the best course of action?

 

So they arrested him after the fact it was determined by EOD that it wasn't a bomb? I admit I skimmed the story. If that is the case, then yes it is excessive.

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Here are two articles regarding the incident.

 

The first is from FOX News.  The second one is from The Dallas Morning News which is referenced in the first article.

 

A couple of relevant quotes from the first article.

Mohamed told the News that he built the clock in about 20 minutes Sunday evening using a pencil case, a circuit board, and a power supply wired to a digital display. Mohamed said he showed it to his engineering teacher Monday morning.


 
"He was like, 'That’s really nice,'" Mohamed told the paper. "'I would advise you not to show any other teachers.'"


 

Later in the day, the News reported, Mohamed's English teacher complained when the clock beeped in the middle of a lesson. When Mohamed showed her the device after class, he claims she told him, "It looks like a bomb."

"It could reasonably be mistaken as a device if left in a bathroom or under a car," Irving police spokesman James McLellan told the News. "The concern was, what was this thing built for? Do we take him into custody?" McClellan admitted that Mohamed had always maintained the device was a clock and officers had no reason to believe the contraption is dangerous. 

 

Ultimately, the paper reported Mohamed was taken to a juvenile detention center, fingerprinted, and released to his parents, who claimed their son was singled out because he is Muslim.

 

 

Here are a couple of relevant quotes from the second article.

“There’s no evidence to support the perception he intended to create alarm," Irving police chief Larry Boyd said.

“The follow-up investigation revealed the device apparently was a homemade experiment, and there’s no evidence to support the perception he intended to create alarm,” Boyd said, describing the incident as a "naive accident."

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world.  Those who understand binary and those who don't.

Maybe it was stupid, but I cant blame the teacher for wanting to ensure the safety of her students.

I don't blame the teacher for being concerned about it at all. I do think that all involved in arresting him for bringing a "hoax bomb" to school, after they had already established that it was a freaking clock and that he hadn't told anyone that it was anything other than that, is an idiot and should either resign or be fired for gross stupidity.

 

Here's a picture of the clock. Very easy to see why they thought is could have been a bomb.

If the only explosive devices you've ever seen are the ones in Die Hard with a Vengeance, sure.

 

Maybe if it was something like a knife they can plod around doing an investigation. When you think a bomb, which could easily kill thousands at a populated school, is on the premise you take extraordinary actions.

Again, I don't blame anyone for acting swiftly and aggressively for the ten seconds between the teaching saying, "What is that?" and Ahmed replying, "It's a clock." My biggest issue of all is that Ahmed was arrested for bringing a "hoax bomb" to school, even though he had never represented it as such and clearly shown that it was a clock. The conversation should have ended in the principal's office with Ahmed sent back to class and a pat on the back given for displaying that level of creativity and talent. Instead, the cops arrested him. Why? I don't know. Maybe they didn't want to deal with it again later in the day if someone else panicked. Maybe they felt like "teaching him a lesson" of some sort (other than, "cops are idiots", presumably). Maybe the principal pressured them into making the arrest--that happened a few times at my high school while I was there. Maybe they just didn't want to get back to the precinct and have the sergeant go off on them for bringing a kid to the office on suspicion of having a bomb and not arresting him.

 

Whatever the motivation for arresting him, it was idiotic and unnecessary. Want to know why the rest of the world is kicking our butts in education? Look no further than clown car rejects who would sooner arrest a student for building a complex electronic device from scratch than congratulate him for excellence in math and science. I mean, what's next, kids can't make volcanoes for science fair projects anymore because mixing vinegar and baking soda at the right ratio, then sealing the container, can cause it to violently rupture?

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I don't buy into the Muslim angle. I suppose it's possible, but I think this was more just a case of America's fine crop of public school teachers doing what they do best: going out of their way to stifle thought and hinder the process of learning.

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Unless you are familiar with electronics I could easily see someone mistaken this for a bomb.

 

Can you point out in the picture what makes it look like a bomb?

 

To me it looks like an LED display with four digits, and a couple of circuit boards that are obviously for driving the display, power supply and his clock circuit.  I don't see anything explosive in the picture, and it is housed in a small case.  The picture kind of makes it look like it is "brief case size", but use the plug as a reference.  It's about the size of a pack of cigarettes.

 

Full disclosure, my background is electronics and programming.

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world.  Those who understand binary and those who don't.

I don't blame the teacher for being concerned about it at all. I do think that all involved in arresting him for bringing a "hoax bomb" to school, after they had already established that it was a freaking clock and that he hadn't told anyone that it was anything other than that, is an idiot and should either resign or be fired for gross stupidity.

 

If the only explosive devices you've ever seen are the ones in Die Hard with a Vengeance, sure.

 

Again, I don't blame anyone for acting swiftly and aggressively for the ten seconds between the teaching saying, "What is that?" and Ahmed replying, "It's a clock." My biggest issue of all is that Ahmed was arrested for bringing a "hoax bomb" to school, even though he had never represented it as such and clearly shown that it was a clock. The conversation should have ended in the principal's office with Ahmed sent back to class and a pat on the back given for displaying that level of creativity and talent.

 

Couple things here. I can assume that the teacher and principle are not experts in explosive ordinance nor electronics and would be able to properly conclude that the device was indeed not a bomb. So in this case, why would you leave it up to the judgement of untrained, uneducated individuals? They felt threatened, and they made a judgement call. Again, they were most likely NOT educated in explosive ordinance. It was a matter of safety and I feel they made the right choice. At least they care enough about their student body to want to protect them from potential danger.

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Full disclosure, my background is electronics and programming.

Full disclosure: mine is not, and I could instantly tell that if it was a bomb, it was a very poorly designed one. I mean, what kind of bomb works without any explosives?

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