Mohamed was wrongfully arrested for a home invention.
By Dileep Thekkethil
After getting detained for bringing a homemade clock to his school, in Irving, Texas, which apparently looked like a bomb to some teachers, the school principal and the police, 14-year-old Ahmed Mohamed – America’s latest hero – will have busy weeks ahead, visiting the White House and Facebook headquarters among many.
President Barack Obama has invited Mohamed, who has a keen interest in robotics, to the White House, saying that America has to encourage students who have an interest in science and engineering – instead of putting them behind bars.
Obama tweeted today, “Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House?. We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It’s what makes America great.”
Texas police arrested the child prodigy, an American whose parents are from Sudan, on Monday after he took his invention – a homemade clock to school, which triggered a false alarm among teachers as its shape looked similar to a bomb. Mohamed, a native of Irving and a Freshman at his high school, is said to have a deep passion for robotics and engineering, and built the device on Sunday night.
Five police officers arrested Mohamed from the principal’s office on Monday morning after his teachers complained to the school principal that his clock invention could go off at any time. He was taken away handcuffed to the juvenile detention centre where he is said to have been put under intense questioning for more than five hours.
Mohamed was quoted by The Dallas Morning News saying that he first showed his simple clock made using circuit board and a power supply connected to a digital display to his teacher, who advised him to keep it somewhere safe from getting noticed by other staff members of MacArthur High School.
Obeying his teacher’s advice, young Mohamed kept the clock in his bag, but the homemade clock made beep sounds during the English class and the teacher inquired him only to get shocked seeing the object in his bag. Soon, she took it away and during the sixth period, the school principal accompanied by a police officer marched into the classroom and took him away, for allegedly trying to make a bomb. The principal was of no help to the boy as he threatened to expel young Mohamed unless he gave a satisfactory written statement.
Mohamed’s arrest resulted in an outpouring of sympathy and many high-profile names extended support for the teenager and expressed interest in meeting him. The big name other than President Obama is Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg who posted on Facebook “Having the skill and ambition to build something cool should lead to applause, not arrest. The future belongs to people like Ahmed. Ahmed, if you ever want to come by Facebook, I’d love to meet you.”
Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton also rallied for the ninth grader and tweeted “Assumptions and fear don’t keep us safe—they hold us back. Ahmed, stay curious and keep building,” indirectly hinting at the growing islamophobia among Americans.
Ahmed Mohamed’s father told The Dallas Morning News “Because his name is Mohamed and because of September 11th, I think my son got mistreated,”. The Council on American-Islamic Relations has also condemned the arrest of Irving student. Alia Salem, director of the council’s North Texas chapter said, “This all raises a red flag for us,” the paper. “We’re still investigating, but it seems pretty egregious.”
It is learnt that the Texas police might still go ahead charging Mohamed for making a “hoax bomb”. Police spokesperson James McLellan said even though Mohamed kept maintaining it was a clock all through the interrogation he couldn’t provide any broader explanation.
The Dallas Morning News asked McLellan what broader explanation Ahmed could have given for a homemade simple clock; he said the creation “could reasonably be mistaken as a device if left in a bathroom or under a car.”
According to the Police report released on Tuesday, three teachers of the MacArthur High School are the ones’ who have made the complaint against Mohamed for allegedly inventing a “hoax bomb”.
1 Comment
I think people, without knowing the full story, think the kid made something that looked like a regular clock: round face with numbers or digital numbers. But if you look at what he made, both BEFORE the media circus and AFTER, the thing looks EXACTLY like a briefcase bomb. I question the intelligence of his parents for letting him take something taht looked like that to school. Given the violent attacks in schools in the past, I do not blame the teachers one bit for what they did. This kid is NOT a hero! A hero is a person who saves others at the risk to his own life. This kid did nothing heroic, nothing deserving of all the hero worship going on. I’m really getting sick of how the western countries are stupidly slobbering all over the muslims, when the muslims spit on our countries’ values, and demand special treatment as if they were royalty. This kid is NOT A HERO!!! Enough of this media circus, already!