Teen Robotics NASA Enthusiast Arrested For Making Electronic Clock
14-year-old Ahmed Mohamed arrested for bringing homemade clock to school, The Verge
“Police in Texas have arrested a 14-year-old boy for building a clock. Ahmed Mohamed, who lives in Irving and has a keen interest in robotics and engineering, put the device together on Sunday night. When he took it to school the next day, he was pulled out of class, interviewed by police officers, and taken in handcuffs to juvenile detention, after being told by teachers that his creation looked like a bomb. A picture reportedly taken by Ahmed’s sister shows him in handcuffs at the juvenile detention center, sporting a NASA T-shirt and an understandably confused expression. Ahmed was fingerprinted, before being allowed to return home, but is still serving a three-day suspension from school.”
Larger image
Irving 9th-grader arrested after taking homemade clock to school: ‘So you tried to make a bomb?’, Dallas News
“Ahmed Mohamed who makes his own radios and repairs his own go-kart hoped to impress his teachers when he brought a homemade clock to MacArthur High on Monday. Instead, the school phoned police about Ahmed’s circuit-stuffed pencil case. So the 14-year-old missed the student council meeting and took a trip in handcuffs to juvenile detention. His clock now sits in an evidence room. Police say they may yet charge him with making a hoax bomb though they acknowledge he told everyone who would listen that it’s a clock.”
Keith’s note: Yea this is the right way to encourage the next generation of space explorers, engineers, entrepreneurs. Note that he was wearing a NASA T-shirt. This guy could grow up to be the next Mark Whatney. #IStandWithAhmed
Teen Arrested For Making A Clock – He's young Mark Whatney http://t.co/EWx8z8PaHK #TheMartian #IStandWithAhmed #NASA pic.twitter.com/iSX0lM5fap
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) September 16, 2015
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.
— President Obama (@POTUS) September 16, 2015
Thank you fellow supporters. We can ban together to stop this racial inequality and prevent this from happening again pic.twitter.com/fBlmckoafU
— Ahmed Mohamed (@IStandWithAhmed) September 16, 2015
From @iglvzx #IStandWithAhmed pic.twitter.com/FJhvK2yeKm
— Dave Lavery (@davelavery) September 16, 2015
Hi @IStandWithAhmed ! I'd love you to join us for our science show Generator in Toronto on 28 Oct. There's a ticket waiting for you.
— Chris Hadfield (@Cmdr_Hadfield) September 16, 2015
Read the articles. They describe it. I guess this means an end to all electronics classes in all schools everywhere – just to be safe.
“I guess this means an end to all electronics classes in all schools everywhere – just to be safe.”
You can’t be TOO SAFE.
Don’t let anyone with a foreign sounding name take any STEM classes anywhere anytime. Period.
There. I feel safer already.
Many of our schools are run by morons.
Something like this I think. For the moment, Ahmed’s clock is in police evidence so it might be a bit before a picture of it is shared.
edit: he said the clock was in a cheap metal box, not as refined as the one in the picture. He put it together in 20 minutes just to start with something small to show his teacher.
“The concern was, what was this thing built for?”
Uh, because some people need clocks??
NASA t-shirt clearly indicated this kid loves engineering. But apparently that’s viewed as a crime in a Texas school if your skin is the wrong color.
Actually, in general it is not. D/FW is an enormously diverse place (one of my favorite data points: https://www.youtube.com/wat…, and local Muslim schools regularly feature among the prize winners at the local science fair. The failure here, I think, is in the educational system prioritizing curriculum dispensers instead of actual teachers (plus the obnoxious paramilitarization of police response), not in the remnant redneck-ness of Texas.
This one particularly stings me as I was at that high school in Irving not too long ago to give a presentation on Cislunar Space to their Civil Air Patrol chapter there. I may well have met this young man at a prior NSS outreach event, or as a science fair student, or at one of my Moon Days. In fact, I should invite him out for next year…
I agree we shouldn’t generalize about Texas. That’s just the sort of thing I’ve objected to in other messages. But some parts of that state are.worse than others. After living in San Antonio for a few.years, a friend commented that it was interesting to experience what life was like in the 1950s, but she preferred to live.in the 21st century. Having lived there myself, I’d say I did not like the way it was bilingual. Half the city speaks both English and Spanish fluently. But the half who do are almost always of Mexican decent. Most whites don’t feel the need to learn a word of Spanish. So, I don’t think this incident should be used to condemn the whole state of Texas, it does illustrate a problem which is common in that stat as well as.in other places.
I would want to agree but the statements of the elected mayor of Irving have been shown, before and after this incident, to concern folks about race relations in that particular city.
Really? I guess all those kids who are children of NASA employees are real dumb clucks simply because they go to school in Texas. How all those moronic children who have a Mom or Dad that work for Lockheed Martin in DFW? Those Texans are some kind of stupid, I tell ya. Just like those morons who live in Huntsville Alabama. If you’re from the south why I guess you’re just an idiot just like John Watts Young. I could go on you know…
As an undergraduate at UC Berkeley, I was required to build just that sort of clock. One part of the junior-senior physics lab course involved handing students a bunch of components and making them figure out how to put them together and build various things. (One, as a joke, even made his clock count down, with LED display and loud noise at 0.) So, perhaps a student, learning about electronics, might reasonably have a circuit he built with him in school.
And even still, countdown clocks that make noises are used widely, not just weapons. Cooking. Sports such as sailing, or at track practice when doing sprints, taking a nap,……………….
This is the kind of drama cop shows warn us about — how childhood events shape the adult. Brrrrr…..
knee jerk reaction of an ignorant teacher and school administration
And an ignorant police department. The teachers didn’t put the handcuffs on the 14 year old student who wanted to impress his engineering teacher..
Welcome to the NO FLY LIST, kid.
You will soon discover all the comfort and convenience that is a Greyhound bus.
Problem is that “Ahmed Mohammed” ‘s name has been on the no-fly list since 2002. This child may very well have a little previous exposure to the idea of guilty till proven innocent.
I wonder if this would have happened if he’d be blonde-haired and blue eyed?
Well, I’m not blonde but clearly of European origin. In college, around 1990, I had a few conversations with the police over doing perfectly reasonable things that looked suspicious. Also, once or twice in the last few years in airports. That involved exactly what I said: a conversation. None lasting more than a few minutes. Then being told, “Oh. OK. Never mind.”
I think a conversation would have been fine in this case. I’ve had a few of those over the years as well (e.g. laser tag game in an empty university parking garage on a Sunday afternoon). But unfortunately, this 14 year old was handcuffed, taken to the police station, and fingerprinted before the police ultimately decided not to file charges. My conversations with the police have certainly never gone that far.
…His teacher, (presumably a 16th Century French Art History major), pulled the student out of class and marched him down to the school principal, (surely, a Medieval Peruvian Poetry-Linguistics
major). Police Spokesperson (sic), James McLellan, (an accomplished JuCo Communications-PhyEd Double Major with a solid 2.6 GPA), said, ‘…the creation could reasonably be mistaken for a bomb…’. A police report released on Tuesday cites three MacAurthur High Teachers (unquestionably, all well-traveled, intuitive and highly-compensated Elementary Education college majors) as complainants against Ahmed for the “hoax bomb”.
Seriously, look at this kid: He looks like he just transitioned from playing with his boogers, to Pokemon, to Kinex sets, to MIT junior online summer courses. And with those glasses, even ISIS wouldn’t take him!
General insults hurled at the teaching profession undermine whatever argument you might try be trying to make here. Teachers, as a whole, are underfunded and underappreciated in this country.
That is not to say that one or more teachers at this institution are evincing a racial or cultural bias or have been influenced by too much paranoid media since the days of 9/11. Of that there is plenty in this country, but it has not a darn thing to do with the majors of the teachers in college, which was most likely education, if you want to know.
I hope this young man gets a scholarship out of this!
Be nice to turn lemons into lemonade on this one.
I’m sure he’ll be OK, seeing the reaction, but. How many lemons out there that nobody ever reads about ?
EDIT: absolutely everyone who is anyone and their grandmothers have now showed support, including potus, leads of major tech companies etc. The kid will be OK. Question is, will something bigger come out of this and my bet is no, everything will be forgotten by the next outrage storm
Has the husband of a national board teacher that taught in schools from rough neighborhoods, heard many stories where many kids and teachers were unjustly targeted by bad administration personnel.
Many lives damaged.
Schools are not always a safe place to send your kids.
The cops held him incommunicado for almost an hour and a half after he asked to call his parents while interrogating him without an attorney, then arrested him. If his family gets a good attorney, he may well be set for life or at least college. That would be some justice for a change.
Learning while brown…if this is how the US is willing to treat its aspiring non-white future generation, then no wonder US is having a STEM gap.
What do you expect? It’s Texas and he has brown skin and a non-white name. Kids lucky to be alive.
There are plenty more such places in this country that are not Texas.
Expect people to learn to treat each other with respect.
We do have the capacity to learn you know!
Why can’t it just be the school being cautious about the safety of its
students? Why does it have to be racial? We all know the dangers that
exist even in our elementary schools. This boy,I’m sure is aware of the
problems we have with violence at school, yeah he might be a wiz kid but
bringing a device with a power source, digital display, wires,and maybe
a circuit board, inside of a case doesn’t sound like a bright idea to
me, even if the kid is wearing a NASA tee shirt!
If an adult flyer
even says the wrong thing while boarding or on an airliner you know the
ramifications that can follow. Yeah I get it, this is a 14 year old
boy. But it’s not inconceivable that one could rain down terror upon a
school.
Yea right. So lets prohibit EVERY AMERICAN STUDENT from bringing any electronic project to school – just in case.
I’m sorry, but this is a school, not an airliner surrounded by the Paranoia Police (a.k.a. TSA). Schools are places to learn and explore. If we can’t do that in a school, then we have much MUCH bigger problems than simple homemade electronics – all racial issues aside.
Being concerned with safety is determining whether or not it’s dangerous. When it was obvious that it was a clock, that concern should have been satisfied.
Safety is not putting a kid in handcuffs and suspending him for three days because the police and school administrators don’t understand what a clock is for.
“bringing a device with a power source, digital display, wires,and maybe a circuit board, inside of a case doesn’t sound like a bright idea to me, even if the kid is wearing a NASA tee shirt!”
Do you know how many things have these components, yet aren’t bombs? “But it’s obviously home-made!” you may object. Yes, like a bomb, and also like any number of homemade electronics a devices a kid might bring into school if you didn’t automatically suspect him of being a terrorist. And of course his clock obviously lacked the one component any bomb (or hoax bomb) needs, namely a single scrap of explosive-looking material.
But the more important point is that even after they had determined it was a clock, they still called in the police and handcuffed him. Calling him to the principal’s office to determine what it was would be dumb, but ultimately acceptable. But once it reached that stage it should have been over, with an apology no less. The fact that they called in the cops and had him arrested, and that those cops then interrogated him and released him with a threat to prosecute (for making a “hoax bomb”) is what has everyone angry.
His rights (to attend public school and to not be put in handcuffs and taken to juvi) should not be a victim of the teacher/admin/LEO’s ignorance.
The thing is, they didn’t even think it was a bomb (school not evacuated, bomb squad was not called); they thought it looked like a fake-bomb. I think there are geeks/nerds among us that might have done something similar in their youth. While we might have gotten lectures and stern warnings from our teachers, and maybe a phone call to our parents, this child got arrested. That is not merely being cautious. And I can understand those who think it may be racially motivated.
There is a good chance this boy is well aware of certain issues of violence in school, in the form of anti-nerd or xenophobic bullying. Doubt this will help things. I hope he, if he wants, doesn’t have to go back there and has a better opportunity soon. The school’s loss.
And you describe a cell phone with charging cord, btw, which have, in fact, been used as bomb trigger devices. Some schools ban them, some don’t, but not for the reasons implied here.
Yup, and they could rain that terror down by just keeping something in their backpack without anyone knowing as opposed to saying to their teacher, “Look at this cool thing I made!”
As EtOH says below, I could _possibly_ see someone checking with the principal about it. OK, it’s a crazy time, we need to be extra vigilant, blah, blah, blah. I’d still question whether they would have even considered it if the kid had been white. But it’s pretty clear that they must have figured out immediately it was just a clock otherwise they would be incredibly stupid to sit around some device that they think is a bomb. And handcuffs? What’s he going to do? Run over to Radio Shack and build another clock?
Amen. One news report said he was cuffed for “his safety and that of police officers.” Really? He’s skinny as a rail. What’s he going to do to a Texas cop or cops, plural?
That’s what they mean by “his safety.” In the long history of civilian-police misunderstandings and outright police abuse, there is a long list of events where a civilian was injured and the police involved said they thought he was attacking them and had to defend themselves. Even when that seems unlikely. Like a skinny 14-year old attacking a couple of cops. As a result, the handcuffs are a common policy. By requiring their use on all occasions, the suspect is protected by removing the possibility of a “misunderstanding.”
Oh, my aching head. What’s next – leg shackles and straitjackets? He could have roundhouse kicked the officers and made good his escape, I think Mel Gibson did that in a movie.
then why were none of the seven white kids that brought homemade electronic clocks to school NOT arrested? Only the guy named mohammed was arrested and cuffed.
The cop said “it looked like a bomb from a movie.”
Do you know how to tell when something is NOT a bomb? When it looks like a bomb from a movie.
Also, when it is as described – a digital display, wires, and a circuit board – AND NO EXPLOSIVES.
We need to expect more training from cops than to just react to a digital display like one they saw in a dumb movie that said “Secret Evil Terrorist Device” with big flashing lights and NO EXPLOSIVES.
And this district is in an area where they are on an anti-Sharia Law kick, passing local legislation banning judges from using Sharia Law, as if the US Constitution doesn’t already have that covered – and you expect that in that atmosphere, this is not racial?
Wake up.
Seriously.
EDIT: Also, I wonder… is this one of those districts where the politicians think all teachers should be carrying guns “for safety?” Wouldn’t surprise me.
Police have very little training in technical areas, mental health, and a variety of other critical fields. They need more, but taxpayers are just interested in uniforms and cars on the street. The teachers are really the first line of defense here; they need to know their students, and, frankley, they need to know their high tech devices, even homemade ones.
You might recall the young African-American girl in Florida less than 2 years ago, a star student, who was attempting to build a science project simulating a volcano eruption using the reaction of aluminum foil and toilet bowl cleaner in a _8oz_ bottle. The lid popped off and some smoke came out. She got arrested, charged with possession/discharge of a weapon on school grounds and discharging a destructive device (to be tried as an adult) and was expelled. It was only after significant public outcry and a 10 day suspension that she was allowed back in school and graduated. You can’t tell me that was the first time in history a high school student has done an experiment of that nature, but clearly they weren’t treated in this fashion. So yes, it shouldn’t be racial, but sadly there is a pattern as to who receives disproportionately harsh treatment in these sorts of situations.
Just to add: Homer Hickam heard of her plight and raised enough money for her and her twin sister to attend the US Advanced Space Academy at the University of Alabama-Huntsville later that year.
Today, and two years ago, we are living in a different type of America than when I went to school. Where it was once common place to do the ‘volcano science project’.Today I am not so sure students are permitted to bring such chemicals into school for safety reasons and insurance reasons. The girl in Florida was probably charged under laws recently added to the books because of the terrible run of school violence that has plagued our Country.
Luckily her story had a happy ending. As, apparently, Ahmed’s is having. But you cant fault our schools for over reacting. Just imagine if your child, or mine were injured due to a schools failure to react to even at the hint of a threat! Or POSSIBILITY of a threat!
But back to this girl. Did she break any laws by bringing these chems into school? I don’t know. Did the science teacher explain to the students what was and wasn’t permitted as far as the projects are concerned? I don’t know. Was charging her ‘with possession/discharge of a weapon on school grounds and discharging a destructive device’ a little over the top? Probably. But how do you let this slide by, if there is a law? We’ve long lost our days of being innocent and arbitrary.
And so Al-quida’s victory over the US continues, as America declines from a thousand paranoid self-inflicted wounds.
Good point. People have short memories. I am thinking of the names “Timothy” and “Terry.” For those of you too young to member, two “Americans” with these first names are why nobody anywhere in America can park in front of a Federal building anymore. And why the families and friends of 168 people continue to mourn a terrible loss.
A lot of people may not know or remember the fact that they randomly detained brown skinned professors from the University of Oklahoma among others the day of and immediately afterward. They were not looking for white people named Timothy or Terry at first.
“This boy,I’m sure is aware of the problems we have with violence at school, …
bringing a device with a power source, digital display, wires,and maybe
a circuit board, inside of a case doesn’t sound like a bright idea to
me, even if the kid is wearing a NASA tee shirt! “
So, no smartphones, tablets, or music players/headphones, either?
Let’s be fair. An antisocial but white student might easily have gotten the same reaction. The problem is a distrust of people who “aren’t like us.” Ethnic background and presumed religion are examples of that, but discrimination isn’t all that discriminating.
Damn. Once upon a time, to even get questioned by police, let along arrested, a Maker had to be into some pretty awesome stuff. Dangerous, cool stuff. Homemade solid rocket fuel, accidentally blacking out the whole neighbourhood, built a Farnsworth fusion reactor, etc.
I mean, “when I was 12 I got arrested for…” stories used to be a point of pride for geek-engineers; it meant you did something epic. Now it’s down to “My First Circuit, suitable for ages 8 and up” level stuff.
Weak sauce.
An article with a picture of the clock.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/te…