9th Grade Muslim student arrested for making a homemade clock fro school project

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Muslima wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Muslima wrote:OMG. It is not relevant whether the kid bought a clock, stole a clock, reassembled a clock, made a clock from spare parts, or built the clock from scratch, most educated people are in agreement of one thing: It wasn't a bomb, it wasn't a hoax bomb. Give it up already!

It is relevant that it looked like a bomb. White kids have been suspended for having gun shaped objects in school. Sorry you can't make this a Muslim thing. You and the media want it to be about islamaphobia, but it's not. The difference is if a white kid had done it, he wouldn't have been invited to the White House.

I don't think you understood what I wrote, I never said anything about it looking like a bomb..In any case, do you think that if Ahmed was named John and was white,the teacher would've raised the alarm ( no pun intended ) and he would be taken in a room with 5 officers, interrogated and arrested after saying multiple times that it was a clock?

Yes I absolutely do. White kids shoot up schools, white kids get suspended for having toy guns, drawings of guns, etc. A white student would have been interrogated and possibly suspended. But a white kid would not have been invited to the White House.

*cannon



White kid builds marshmallow cannon, wins trip to White House

Wow! Those look like marshmallow canons!! If a kid walked into school with something that was say, black and not orange, and it looked just like an assault rifle, and the kid said "no it's a marshmallow canon," I'll bet that student would get taken to the office and maybe have a few police officers come in to check out the canon-that-looks-like-an-automatic-rifle, and said kid might even get reprimanded for making something that looks like a rifle. But said kid would not be invited to the White House.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Muslima wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Muslima wrote:OMG. It is not relevant whether the kid bought a clock, stole a clock, reassembled a clock, made a clock from spare parts, or built the clock from scratch, most educated people are in agreement of one thing: It wasn't a bomb, it wasn't a hoax bomb. Give it up already!

It is relevant that it looked like a bomb. White kids have been suspended for having gun shaped objects in school. Sorry you can't make this a Muslim thing. You and the media want it to be about islamaphobia, but it's not. The difference is if a white kid had done it, he wouldn't have been invited to the White House.

I don't think you understood what I wrote, I never said anything about it looking like a bomb..In any case, do you think that if Ahmed was named John and was white,the teacher would've raised the alarm ( no pun intended ) and he would be taken in a room with 5 officers, interrogated and arrested after saying multiple times that it was a clock?

Yes I absolutely do. White kids shoot up schools, white kids get suspended for having toy guns, drawings of guns, etc. A white student would have been interrogated and possibly suspended. But a white kid would not have been invited to the White House.

*cannon



White kid builds marshmallow cannon, wins trip to White House

Wow! Those look like marshmallow canons!! If a kid walked into school with something that was say, black and not orange, and it looked just like an assault rifle, and the kid said "no it's a marshmallow canon," I'll bet that student would get taken to the office and maybe have a few police officers come in to check out the canon-that-looks-like-an-automatic-rifle, and said kid might even get reprimanded for making something that looks like a rifle. But said kid would not be invited to the White House.

*cannon

[Anonymous]

Because everyone knows what a "marshmallow canon" is supposed to look like.

[Anonymous]

Amazing. 36 pages of people arguing the same crap over and over. LMAO

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Amazing. 36 pages of people arguing the same crap over and over. LMAO

It's because the morons who can't tell the difference between a circuit board and a bomb. Or, a marshmallow cannon and an AK-47. It's because of the morons who still don't realize there's something wrong with the fact that nobody from the school or police ever treated the kid's clock like as though it were actually a bomb. It's because of the morons who can't ever bring themselves to admit they were wrong and who instead just double down on stupid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Muslima wrote:OMG. It is not relevant whether the kid bought a clock, stole a clock, reassembled a clock, made a clock from spare parts, or built the clock from scratch, most educated people are in agreement of one thing: It wasn't a bomb, it wasn't a hoax bomb. Give it up already!

So it should never have been looked into in the first place by the administration? If you have a beef, find out why the administration called police. Know why you can't find that information? Because they have not been given permission by the family to tell their side of the story.

It is completely clear why they called the police. They found a kid who had a timer-looking device. It was obviously not a bomb, but they couldn't understand why a kid would bring a timer-looking device to school. They figured he had to have some kind of ulterior motive.

When the questioned him, he just kept repeating "It's a clock. I brought it to show my teacher." When they asked him to explain further, he just kept telling them, "it is a clock. It isn't a bomb." They kept pressuring him: "But why did you bring it to school? We think it looks like a bomb" And he said "No, it's a clock". They said "Admit it, it looks like a bomb". He said, "No, it is a clock."

They decided that he was being "passive aggressive" and non responsive to their line of questioning. It was unbelievable that a child in school would bring a NON ASSIGNED project to high school. So they called the police as clearly this was something very very suspicious.

Is this the boy's side of the story?

Pretty much. They knew it wasn't a bomb and tried to get him to admit he had brought it in to hide it and create a scare. Only flaw in that line of thinking was that he had already shown it to his engineering class teacher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Amazing. 36 pages of people arguing the same crap over and over. LMAO

It's because the morons who can't tell the difference between a circuit board and a bomb. Or, a marshmallow cannon and an AK-47. It's because of the morons who still don't realize there's something wrong with the fact that nobody from the school or police ever treated the kid's clock like as though it were actually a bomb. It's because of the morons who can't ever bring themselves to admit they were wrong and who instead just double down on stupid.

Actually, it's Radio Shack's clock. Not Ahmed's. He might have built other things, but not this.

It's not a bomb because there are no explosives. But it sure as heck could be an incendiary device. It bore investigating.

[Anonymous]

To add to the above (I'm the PP), this is an article about an electrician seeing a single loose wire, which he thought unusual:

“We were just trouble shooting,” Charlotin said. “One wire didn’t attach to a light. . . . I was expecting a light.”

Charlotin’s find led police to the device, plastered into a bedroom closet and wired to explode when a light switch was flipped in the single-family home. A bomb squad safely disarmed the device, which authorities described as a plastic jug filled with accelerant

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/03/25/electrician-helped-lead-authorities-incendiary-device-milton-home/KBBYLwDBprb4Tn0gfshZHO/story.html

Remember that the Columbine shooters worked in tandem. It's not only lone individuals that police have to worry about. The family was well-known in the area due to the father's activist behavior, which is why one of the officers reportedly said something to the effect that he wasn't surprised it at who he was called to interview.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Amazing. 36 pages of people arguing the same crap over and over. LMAO

It's because the morons who can't tell the difference between a circuit board and a bomb. Or, a marshmallow cannon and an AK-47. It's because of the morons who still don't realize there's something wrong with the fact that nobody from the school or police ever treated the kid's clock like as though it were actually a bomb. It's because of the morons who can't ever bring themselves to admit they were wrong and who instead just double down on stupid.

Actually, it's Radio Shack's clock. Not Ahmed's. He might have built other things, but not this.

It's not a bomb because there are no explosives. But it sure as heck could be an incendiary device. It bore investigating.

It couldn't be an incendiary device because there is nothing to ignite and there is no igniter. This is clear from the most casual inspection, and could be verified by the engineering teacher who undoubtedly is qualified to examine a clock. But hey, since we can never be sure, have all those kids with Nintendo 3DS toss them in a bag before the enter the school. Any of those could be an incendiary device too.

[Anonymous]

Sad little lives filled with suspicion and fear.

[Anonymous]

I don't doubt that this kid's color and religion got him even worse treatment. But there's another issue here, and that's in our NRA-driven gun culture, we haven't figured out how to balance school safety against hysteria and paranoia. Our neighbor's white daughter was suspended for a week for bringing a bread knife into Blair HS in Silver Spring.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I don't doubt that this kid's color and religion got him even worse treatment. But there's another issue here, and that's in our NRA-driven gun culture, we haven't figured out how to balance school safety against hysteria and paranoia. Our neighbor's white daughter was suspended for a week for bringing a bread knife into Blair HS in Silver Spring.

The school is 94% minority. If anything, the father's activist behavior pegged the hinky meter

For those saying it wasn't a bomb, trained police and military go 'yet'. They know there have been cases of person 1 bringing X and person 2 bringing Y. So they need to investigate if called. W hy the school called, we can't know

[Anonymous]

Here's the thing -- this should never have been a story. If the admin. folks had any (and I mean "any") common sense this would not have made it out of the vice-principals office. Ahmed would have been told -- "kind of cool but don't bring stuff that looks like this to school. Pick it up at the end of the day, and in the meantime I am going to get you some info. on robotics club, stage crew and some engineering stuff we have going on. See you at 3:00." If they wanted, the admin folks could have also called Ahmed's parents and said, "Hey - Ahmed brought a timer he built to school today. It looks a bit iffy so one of his teachers asked me to talk to him. I did and we're cool. I just wanted you to know, and I would like you to talk to him about what is appropriate from an appearance perspective. We live in times where school security is top of everyone's mind. So, it's best to be smart about this kind of stuff. Also, I am sending home info on things Ahmed can get involved with here at school where he can put his talents to use." Problem solved. Everyone is happy. Common sense prevails. No story.

Instead -- the admin and campus police decided to go into "bully" mode. Now, I have no problem with a teacher wanted the thing checked out. I have no problem with sending some in building security to call Ahmed out of class. If the teacher was worried. It is worth doing. I still have never heard what the teacher said though. Clearly the building was not put into any sort of alert mode. And, if you really are concerned about a bomb why would you carry it through the halls of a school. If you were someone in the office that day would you want building security to bring a suspect bomb by you and put it in a room near you? If you were a parent of a kid at the school, would you want them carrying a suspect bomb by your kid? And -- what police agency ever touches a suspect bomb? Ever? The procedure is to immediately clear the surrounding area and then call in the professionals. The procedure is NOT; go pick up the thing and carry it around and through a building full of kids then bring it into a room full of adults. Really?

However, because now we have several adults and police involved we no longer can ratchet things back to a simple talk and phone call. Because we now have to justify everyone's time on this -- we double down and decide to question Ahmed and then arrest him when he says he built a clock. Now - wouldn't you think that in a room full of school admins charged with enforcing school discipline, and police officers who are working in the school that it must have occurred to someone, "Hey - if we really are thinking we need to have Ahmed arrested then shouldn't we call his parents, and shouldn't we stop questioning him until they get here?" Nope. No one. Instead -- the decision is made to go for broke (literally as it turns out), cuff the kid and walk him out at the end of the school day. No one will notice anything odd there right?

Here's where the police screwed up: Police on a high school campus work "WITH" the administration, but they do not work "FOR" the administration. Police officers must exercise their own judgment based on their own experience and training. Yes -- the police here should have talked to the admin folks, the teachers, and inspected the device. They then should have said -- "Not a police matter. Thanks for calling us though."

I would guess it was right about midnight of that evening, when it was clear that the matter was blowing up and not going away, everyone in that room who thought it was a good idea to question and then arrest Ahmed was having second thoughts. How happy do you suppose Chief Boyd is with his officers now that millions of people think he is a complete idiot as he has to talk to the media and give obviously silly answers because he knows his department is going to get sued.

This is one of those times though that can be a real learning experience for a school and for a community. Principals and other admins are paid, in part, to exercise what we hope is good judgment in dealing with our kids. Yes, from time to time kids will do bad stuff and stupid stuff and the school will have to invoke some punishment. We, as parents, must demand that our school admins. have and use good judgment, and if they cannot -- then they need to go.

[Anonymous]

It was all a set up-The Mohammeds are laughing all the way to the bank and Obama and this country look like a bunch of gullible fools!

[Anonymous]

Obama should have had Ahmed, the teacher, and the reporting police to the WH for a root beer summit.

Actually, in all honesty - the school and police should be praised for saying something when they saw something.
To think the teachers or the police knew that this was a harmless device is a stretch.

My fear is that the next time something like this happens, the teachers will be reluctant to say something in fear of being called bigots when in fact there will be something to report.