Welcome to Texas, Ahmed. It’s About Time.
High school in Irving, Texas, is not Intelligence Central. And you know that because a science teacher at that school didn’t know the difference between a digital clock and a bomb.
A ninth grader with an interest in electronics made a homemade clock and brought it to school, proudly showing it to his engineering teacher who told him, “Don’t show that to anyone else.” Apparently, time stands still in Irving, Texas, and they like it that way.
The clock’s alarm went off during another class and – ah ha – that teacher discovered the magic of time. And thought it was a bomb.
Ahmed Mohamed told the teacher it was a homemade digital clock. He kept repeating that after the police were called, interrogated him and marched him out in handcuffs in front of other students. He missed his student council meeting.
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.”
The police claimed it looked like “a movie bomb” because everything they know about science, they learned from a Bruce Willis movie.
They’re still investigating the case, and Ahmed hasn’t been back to school. His family said the principal suspended him for three days.
Yes, suspended for being smart. By the way, he was charged with making a fake bomb, or as it is more commonly known, not a bomb.
Thanks to everybody for the heads up.
And if his name was “anglo” and his skin was white, would they have reacted the same?
1Since it was Irving, he should have put a Dallas Cowboys logo on it.
2Do you realize this young man is probably smarter then everyone else in that school and police dept.?
3Texas.. Texas edjacashun… Texas cops…. ignorance and bigotry defined.
4Thank goodness it wasn’t a toaster – they would have thought it was an IED armed with bread.
5That poor, frightened kid. The need for vigilance is, of course, warranted, but they had at least one teacher in that building who could have explained that the clock posed no danger. Instead, the stoopid boobs jumped to the wrong conclusion and inexplicably declined an expert’s help. Hope some lawyer with a heart sues the cops and the school district. No way should he have been suspended.
6Ohlardheppus, hit ain’t the terrists whats gonna kill us, hit’s the ignernce and fear.
One of the uncles worked for General Dynamics, one of the brothers-in-law worked for TI. I grew up near a university noted for its engineering school. Couldn’t one of the rocket surgeons in the Irving PD called someone who might actually KNOW about bombs and ask them for info and help? Oh right, they don’t trust science and scientists, except when it suits them.
7Everything is bigger in Texas,especially the STOOPID! Over-react much,guys?
8@Diane
Your comment aboot Ahmed Mohamed reminds me of my favorite JFK quote, in “161. Remarks at a Dinner Honoring Nobel Prize Winners of the Western Hemisphere”.
” I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”
One assumes the same of the aforementioned room in Irving.
9Sometimes, there are no words….. to describe my fellow Texans…… except….. “stupid/ignorant….. dumb…. dumb….. dumb…. dumb….. ”
Aside from that…. I got nothin’.
10Irving apparently requires applicants for cop jobs to take an intelligence test: If they pass it, they are disqualified for police work in Irving.
11P.S…….Of course I’m speaking about the school officials, and the police.
The young man is a genius. Wrong thing to be in Texass.
BTW – all you people who know legal stuff.
How do the cops (legally) detain and question a 14 year old kid, without his parents….. present??
Lawsuit waiting to happen???
12Ahmed should consider going to college out of state – I suspect his settlement amount will cover him all the way thru a very good graduate program.
13These the same people that thought Jade Helm was a thing?
14@someday Girl….
I suspect MIT or Stanford will be glad to have him.
JJ sorry for the multiple posts. However, and then this happened. Texas is now the laughing stock of the entire world.
https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/istandwithahmed?source=whfrt&position=2&trqid=6195126700437851005
15That “bomb” will turn out to be a money shot for this young man. I am so sorry you were put through this, young man. We really are better than this most of the time. Er, some of us are.
16Wow. The smart boy gets suspended by the dumber than dirt adults, the same ones who go around screaming that it’s their RIGHT to intimidate other people with unlicensed hand-held devices that explosively emit injury- and fatality-producing high speed projectiles upon demand. But clocks are right out because ISIS and IEDs and Internet bombs and whatever.
We are on the skids y’all, and accelerating fast. Intelligence is the new terror. Sheesh.
17I love Wired Magazine’s response to this young man’s arrest:
http://www.wired.com/2015/09/make-homemade-clock-isnt-bomb/?mbid=social_twitter
18@Aggieland Liz
You are soooooo right. But it does make sense. If you are dumb as a box of rocks, great intelligence must be terrorizing.
19Texans are cowards.
20“By the way, he was charged with making a fake bomb, or as it is more commonly known, not a bomb.”
I was just speechless at this but then started to think: almost everyone is carrying around a fake bomb including the idiot teacher who turned this kid in; it’s just wrapped in a pretty package. Everyone should be charged for having a FAKE BOMB (AKA the cellphone).
21yep, 12 years old and smarter than everyone in the room and in the police station.
22His family should extract a full ride through MIT, USC, Rice or some other suitable institution for this student. Gets the systems attention, administers learning through financial pain (a universal motivational stimulus), and results in a positive outcome for all involved.
23Let us hope Mary Beth is correct and that this ends up benefiting this bright young man. I suspect it just might do so: #IStandWithAhmed is trending on Twitter and he’s been invited to visit JPL, MIT, and NASA.
My favorite Tweet (from an Astrophysicist), How many professional scientists & engineers are thinking this a.m., “…I have no idea how to design and build a clock.”?
24So the thing went off in class. ‘Cause bombs always come with alarms that go off without any accompanying explosion. It’s a feature.
25My favorite comment so far to this story:
Didn’t go over so well as a clock but it’s a great Ignorant Hick Detector.
26OK, do the local doofi realize that the FBI has already picked up on this and that a Special Agent may be paying them a visit which will leave them sucking their thumbs? He will also probably collect the doofi in one place and make them apologize to the kid. It would be smarter and cheaper for them to do so cuz the lawsuit is going to be doozy!
27Not so much a science teacher as an English teacher that turned him in, apparently. So much for any hope that *my* profession will ever get any respect.
28Profiling, given his name.
29He needs both an apology and a good sized payout!! Good grief, what a bunch of idiots!!
30Meet the school to prison pipeline. Instead of problems (and I realize this kid’s actions don’t even qualify as a problem, more a weird, but good, thing) being handled by the school by educators who have the kid’s best interest at heart, every incident is run by the in-house police who look at it through cop eyes. My son accidentally took a very small knife to school. He told his special ed teacher about it being in his bag, she took it out, they went to take a test. No threats, no issues. The knife passed from the spec ed teacher to the assistant principal, who called me – still nobody’s alarmed – and tells me to come get it. I expect he will be punished, detention or a day’s suspension or something similar. Then the principal and a SRO (cop) see the knife. My son is charged with a felony and sent to the county run alternate school for 45 days. This is not the alternate school for the kids that get into a fight, this is for the kids that are more violent than just kid stuff. The charges were dropped (tiny knife, no intent, no threatening behavior or injuries), but I had to fight the school tooth and nail to get him back in the high school. My kid’s white, big, and not nearly as smart as Ahmed, but it’s the same principle. The SROs in TX schools will charge kids whenever they can to justify their jobs and show how they are keeping kids “safe”.
31Compare this intelligent young man who had the goon squad dispatched against him with the idiot in Miss Juanita Jean’s previous article who introduced himself to his neighbors via a bullet hole in their bathroom wall, at 1:30am no less. Printed circuit board scary; fool with loaded weapon not so much.
Way to go Irving, TX while so many in teaching and LE struggle to maintain their reputations for their hard work and professionalism, you boneheads highlight the incompetent ones.
32Awesome, President Obama just tweeted,”Cool clock Ahmed! Want to bring it to the White House?”
33I hope he gets a nice settlement for their stupidity.
34When John Muir (naturalist) was tinkering with his clocks back in the 19th century, he took one of them on the long train ride to Madison, WI to enter in the state fair. He arrived too late. The judge saw young John’s disappointment so offered to take a look since the boy had traveled so far. He took one look, made an exception on the spot, and let Muir enter the clock which went on to win 1st prize. Later John Muir would start the Sierra Club, and help create Yosemite National Park.
Sadly, this student clock maker in Texas will have a very different first impression of people in a position of authority.
35http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/04/old-weird-tech-john-muir-mechanical-gtd-desk-edition/236861/
Good grief.
36I would say I hope the kid’s parents sue the Irving ISD back to the stone age but that would be nickel and dime law suit.
37Yeah. My brother was a geek, too. He found the leg bone of a rabbit in the back yard, dug up the entire skeleton and put it back together with wire and glue and, probably, some chewing gum.
He once built a device that, when he plugged it in, it shorted out half the fuses in the house. He ran downstairs whooping, “It worked! I worked!” Our dad took it away from him. So he built an improved model. This time, after you plugged it in, you flipped the switch and it shorted out all those brand new fuses.
Thank goodness his skin wasn’t brown and his name wasn’t Ahmed.
38Two crows, I have a brother like that too, he’s great! 😀
39Saw somewhere that the kid’s father is by no means a slouch! Seems he was a candidate for president of Sudan, pushing for press freedom, women’s rights, and fighting terrorism.
The kid has a good start in life and I hope this episode will only make him better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0vegPu2iaI
40Irving living down to their reputation again.
41Honey, ANYTHING can happen in a high school class. I don’t blame the tchr for being nervous. I do blame him for not getting experts in there to verify what kid said. It all happened so fast….Main thing that got me through raising teenagers was that I subbed in high schools and my kids were better than the others.
42And I blame the idiot administration from keeping him out of class for three days. Either he’ll be furious or proud.
43The police claimed it looked like “a movie bomb”
The “movie bombs” I’ve seen are usually carefully hidden by the perp to avoid detection. The police then lock down the building, and scramble frantically to find it in time.
I’m not sure what “movie bomb” movies these Irving police officers watch, but it must involve some incredibly stupid criminals, stupid cops, and people dumb enough to waste their time and money watching it.
44How sad. I hope his family sues. I can’t imagine having to send my kids to school in such a backward state. Keep telling yourself your number one.
45Still shaking my head over this one … what an embarrassment for the school, the city, and the state. Glad that people from all over the world have spoken out in support of Ahmed. He deserves praise, not punishment.
46To those learned adults, the ones the students depend upon in forming their futures… One important aspect of an explosive/incendiary device is the material that goes poof. A timer/clock can’t do anything worse than tell you… time.
If that teacher wasn’t vociferously defending the creator of the clock, he sure as hell can’t teach science.
47Agree with Hollyanna. Texas is a embarrassment. I can’t imagine having to send my kid to school there.
48Which kids in Texas are innocent patriots, and which is the terrorist?
49https://twitter.com/IamTeamIK/status/644190240328978433
I know the I.Q. in TX dropped some points when I moved home to NYC in 1976, but the little bit of anti-Semitism I experienced doesn’t come close to the rampant Islamaphobia. What is WRONG with people?
He’s been invited to MIT, JPL, NASA, and astronomy night at the White House. I hope he gets a full ride scholarship to Stanford, or that the settlement he gets for this lunacy pays for him to attend debt-free, right through the Ph.D.
#IStandWithAhmed
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