Texas - The Epicenter Of Stupidity

[dales]

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/texas- ... ?li=AA54ur

Texas high school student arrested, suspended after bringing homemade clock to school


Ahmed Mohamed, 14, says his hobby is to "invent stuff," and he stands by his assertion that, contrary to what police and officials at his high school say, the homemade clock he brought to show teachers was not a fake bomb.



The freshman at MacArthur High School was detained by police Monday after the principal and authorities were shown his invention. Mohamed said he enjoys making radios and other gadgets at home, so on Sunday, he spent about 20 minutes putting together the clock, using a circuit board, digital display, and case. He told The Dallas Morning News he showed his engineering teacher at the beginning of the school day, who said it was "really nice," then added, "I would advise you not to show any other teachers." Mohamed kept the clock in his bag, but an English teacher heard the alarm go off during class, and he showed her the device. Mohamed said she told him it "looks like a bomb," then kept it.

Mohamed said he was in sixth period when the principal, accompanied by a police officer, pulled him from class. He was led to a room where four other officers were waiting for him, including one he had never seen before who said: "Yup, that's who I thought it was." Mohamed said he was searched and told by the principal that if he didn't write a statement, he'd be expelled. Mohamed was handcuffed and taken to a juvenile detention center, where he was fingerprinted. After that, he was released to his parents.

Police spokesman James McLellan said authorities "have no information that he claimed it was a bomb. He kept maintaining it was a clock, but there was no broader explanation." When pressed by The Dallas Morning News, McLellan added, "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? Do we take him into custody?" Mohamed maintains that the clock was built to tell time. He has been suspended from school for three days, which his father finds upsetting. "He just wants to invent good things for mankind," explained Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed, a Sudanese immigrant. "But because his name is Mohamed and because of Sept. 11, I think my son got mistreated."

[rubato]

When I was in 8th grade I was very interested in making models so I'd bought a razor saw to mike fine cuts with. Someone saw it and thought it must be a weapon so the principal came and confiscated it and I got the 3rd degree. And then I got home and my parents said "oh that's just stupid!". And they chewed her out for being an idiot.

Looked like this:




Fuckers. The world is replete with ignorant hysterical busybodies lacking in judgement.


yrs,
rubato

[oldr_n_wsr]

The stuff we regularly carried, wore or had in our lockers back in the day, would get us suspended for the rest of our lives now-a-days.

[Lord Jim]

It looks like in this particular case the kid's name may have played a role, (at least in how far it was taken; calling the police, putting him in cuffs, booking him; I see his college education being financed by a law suit...) but with the same set of facts, given the gross overreaction we see many school administrators engage in across the country, I could easily see the same thing happening to a kid named Johnny Jones...

Every week one sees new stories of this kind of brain dead overreaction involving kids of every race, color and creed..

Kids getting suspended for pointing their finger like a gun, (or drawing a picture of one) or for bringing their own prescription medication (or even an aspirin) to school, or for bringing a pair of nail clippers to school, etc.,

The world is replete with ignorant hysterical busybodies lacking in judgement.

The only thing this kid is guilty of is looking like the poster boy for Nerds United :

[Crackpot]

Best point I read about this story so far:

This item was seen as dangerous enough to have the kid arrested but not so much that they would evacuate the school.

Watched the press conference by the police and the school district CoP was not willing to admit error and downplayed the event. School district stooge doubled down on their stupidity claiming they acted properly given the intuition and you'd agree if you knew everything but we can't say what we know to protect the child. (though making vague accusations about him is A-ok)

On a purely masochistic bent I read the Newsmax story on this. Was pleasantly surprised to see it was adequately neutral. The comments on the other hand will make you lose all faith in humanity..

[dales]

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!

AUSTIN, Texas, Sept 16 (Reuters) - A Texas teenager taken away in handcuffs this week for bringing to his Dallas-area school a homemade clock that staff mistook for a bomb won a personal invitation from President Barack Obama on Wednesday to visit the White House.


Ahmed Mohamed, 14, was accused of making a hoax bomb, police in Irving said. The Council on American-Islamic Relations said he is Muslim and the case serves as an example of the climate of hate and manufactured fear around the religion.

The bespectacled Mohamed is a ninth grader who was led away in handcuffs and a NASA T-shirt from MacArthur High School on Monday for a project he put together to impress his new high school classmates and teachers.

On Wednesday, he became an Internet sensation.

"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," a message on Obama's Twitter feed said.



Irving MacArthur High School student Ahmed Mohamed, 14, poses for a photo at his home in Irving, Texas, on Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2015. Mohamed was arrested and interrogated by Irving Police officers on Monday after bringing a homemade clock to school.© Vernon Bryant/Dallas Morning News/TNS Irving MacArthur High School student Ahmed Mohamed, 14, poses for a photo at his home in Irving, Texas, on Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2015. Mohamed was arrested and interrogated by Irving Police officers on…The White House invited Mohamed to participate in its astronomy night next month with NASA astronauts and other young people, spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters.

"In this instance, it's clear that at least some of Ahmed's teachers failed him. That's too bad," he said.

Mohamed told a news conference in front of his house that he was going to Washington for the White House Astronomy Night.

Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg also invited the teenager to drop by his California-based company.

"Having the skill and ambition to build something cool should lead to applause, not arrest," he wrote on his Facebook page.

The incident has launched a social media campaign called #IStandWithAhmed, which was the No. 1 trending topic in the United States on Twitter for most of Wednesday with nearly 1 million tweets, many critical of the school district and police.

"I built the clock to impress my teacher but when I showed it to her, she thought it was a threat to her. It was really sad that she took the wrong impression of it and I got arrested for it later that day," he said.

The teenager who dabbles in robotics said he was encouraged by the social media support, loved to invent things and will be looking to transfer to a different high school.you might want to consider getting the hell out of TX, all together

The clock, which had a digital display and circuit board, was in the possession of police, he said.

Police said no charges have been filed and they considered the case closed.

Mohamed was handcuffed and taken to a detention center where he was fingerprinted and had mug shots taken. He was freed when his parents came for him.

Police said the device was in a case and could be mistaken for a bomb. Police spokesman James McLellan said Mohamed's religion had nothing to do with their response.

Two school police officers initially questioned the student and he told them he had built a clock.

"He didn't explain properly what it was and they felt compelled to arrest him," McLellan said. (Reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Additional reporting by Lisa Maria Garza in Dallas, Lisa Lambert and Roberta Rampton in Washington; Editing by Bill Trott and Eric Walsh)

[oldr_n_wsr]

"He didn't explain properly what it was and they felt compelled to arrest him,"

If "it's a clock" is not a proper explanation, I wonder what is?

[Crackpot]

One that would have allowed them to shoot him outright?

[Joe Guy]

I found a picture of the clock. I can't figure out what all of the concern was about...

[RayThom]

... there's no explosive material to be found.

The teachers over-reacted, and worse, after the police arrived, they see the young man's ethnicity and automatically go into bigoted, bozo mode. "Lookie here, boy, you look like one of them there terrorists to me." I'm surprised the cops didn't shoot him on the spot as a matter of national security.


I wonder if Ahmed will pass White House security when he visits our "obvious" Muslim president?

[wesw]

the kid "invented" a clock the size of a briefcase?

it looks a hell of a lot more like a bomb than it does a clock......

all he has to do is "invent" C-4 and he could hear his alarm in the next county.....

his mom looked a little scary too.....

"did you put your dresses on wire hangers?" DID YOU PUT YOUR DRESSES ON WIIIRE HAANGERS!?!?

[Econoline]

deleted double post

[Econoline]

the kid "invented" a clock the size of a briefcase?

It's not a briefcase, it's a pencil case. The electric plug behind it gives an indication of its size.

(And saying that if you added an explosive it could be a bomb is sorta like saying that if you added an explosive my smart phone could be a bomb...or saying that if you added wings to your bicycle it could be an aeroplane.)

[Econoline]

[oldr_n_wsr]

Anybody got a picture of it with with the case closed? That looks like a pretty large pencil case. It is metal and has a latch which is not a pencil case I have ever seen before. My kids had either a plastic case with a slid off cover or a pouch like thingy with a zipper.
Not defending what they did, but if it looks like I think it looks like, I can see a cause for the alarmist attitude. There were loads of examples where lesser things that kids got suspended/sent home for.

[Big RR]

There were loads of examples where lesser things that kids got suspended/sent home for.

I have no doubt; but how many of those were similarly stupid/pointless?

[rubato]

All of them.


yrs,
rubato

[Crackpot]

There were loads of examples where lesser things that kids got suspended/sent home for.

I have no doubt; but how many of those were similarly stupid/pointless?

How many of them included arrest?

[rubato]

To be fair to those involved there are very few people who can look at a circuit wired up on a breadboard and tell you what it is. That kind of thing is just going to look foreign and mysterious even to people with a technical background and if you start with people predisposed to be fearful racists, well.

However.

One thing which a bomb requires is explosive in enough quantity to be destructive so if you look at a device and there are no pieces of any particular size one might be able to infer that even if there is explosive it is no more than an M-80 (large firecracker). While that does not eliminate all danger it does reduce it in scale to something significantly less alarming which one might deal with at a lower level.


yrs,
rubato

[dales]

The clock needed a detonator and an explosive......no where to be found....and bomb material does in no way resemble a pc board, wires, components, etc.

Looks like they pulled a gigantic boner, here!