Muslim teenager arrested for bringing home-made clock to school

Authorities thought it was a bomb.

14-year-old Ahmed Mohamed attempted to build his own clock for a school project at MacArthur High School in Irving, Texas. 

Unfortunately, his brilliant idea landed the teen in juvenile detention.

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA (Catholic Online) - Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said Mohamed's arrest "would not have occurred if he did not have a Muslim name and have a heritage from the Muslim world."

He called the boy's arrest and three-day suspension from school a symptom "of the growing Islamophobia in our nation. We have seen no pushback ... When businesses declare themselves Muslim-free zones that sends a message that it is O.K. to do these things."

Mohamed initially brought the clock to school to show an engineering teacher, who was impressed, but asked that the youth keep it out of sight. During his English class, the clock beeped and he showed it to his teacher who said it looked like a bomb.

He appeared in a video, where he explained his interest in inventing. 

He went on to describe his arrest, claiming, "I got arrested for a hoax bomb. A officer and the principal came and took me ... to a room filled with five officers, which they interrogated me and searched through my stuff and took my tablet and my invention. And later that day I was taken to a juvenile center, detention center, where they searched me, took my fingerprint and mugshots of me and they, they searched me until my parents came ... I couldn't call my parents."

Mohamed said, "it made me feel like a criminal."

Police spokesman James McLellan said Ahmed never claimed his clock was anything but a clock, but officers thought the boy was holding back. "He kept maintaining it was a clock, but there was no broader explanation," he said.

"It could reasonably be mistaken as a device if left in a bathroom or under a car. The concern was, what was this thing built for?" McLellan added.

Irving police chief Larry Boyd said they were justified in detaining Mohamed based on the information available to them at the time of the incident, noting it was "not immediately evident that it was the experiment."

In a news conference, Boyd announced police were not charging the boy with anything, saying, "We have no evidence to support that there was an intention to create an alarm."

Boyd was asked if police would have reacted differently had Ahmed been a white student, to which he replied, "You can't take things like that to school" and he would have followed the same procedures.

Photos of Mohamed's arrest appeared on Twitter immediately, sparking an uproar from social media users who generated the tag #IStandWithAhmed.

The story traveled quickly, even entering the world of political leaders. Hillary Clinton Tweeted, "Assumptions and fear don't keep us safe-they hold us back. Ahmed, stay curious and keep building."

The White House responded with, "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."

---

'Help Give every Student and Teacher FREE resources for a world-class Moral Catholic Education'

Copyright 2021 - Distributed by Catholic Online