Mechanically inclined teen who brought homemade clock to school is arrested on bomb suspicions
Ahmed Mohamed loves to build radios and repairs his own go-kart. In middle school, the robotics club was one of his favorite activities, and he hoped to find a similar niche as a high school freshman.
So when he started at MacArthur High School in Irving, Texas, the 14-year-old brought a clock he had made to school to demonstrate what he could do. It made quite an impact, but not in the way he had intended, his father says.
Mohamed was arrested on Monday, and, he says, led out of school in handcuffs by two police officers and fingerprinted, after teachers at the school and police accused him of making a device that looks like a bomb, reports the Dallas Morning News.
He also says his last name repeatedly came up during police questioning, reports NBC DFW.
Although Mohamed has not been criminally charged and was released to his family, he has been suspended from school for three days. Police say he could be charged with making a hoax bomb, once an investigation is completed, the Morning News reports.
Police spokesman James McLellan says it doesn’t now appear that Mohamed ever claimed the clock was a bomb, “but there was no broader explanation” and police were concerned that they had not gotten the full story. The clock, McLellan said, “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?”
Although the family has now provided a full explanation to the media, “A lot of these details that the family and he have provided to you were not shared with us yesterday,” McLellan told NBC DFW. Mohamed, he said, “was very much less than forthcoming” with authorities.
The teen says he has learned his lesson and won’t ever again take an invention to school.
“He just wants to invent good things for mankind,” Ahmed’s father, Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed, told the Morning News. A Sudanese immigrant, he occasionally returns to his home country to run for president there. “But because his name is Mohamed and because of Sept. 11, I think my son got mistreated.”
In a written statement, the Irving Independent School District said it is prohibited by privacy laws from discussing details of student discipline, but assured the public that “school administrators are handling the situation in accordance with the Irving ISD Student Code of Conduct and applicable laws.
“We always ask our students and staff to immediately report if they observe any suspicious items and/or suspicious behavior,” the statement continues. “If something is out of the ordinary, the information should be reported immediately to a school administrator and/or the police so it can be addressed right away. We will always take necessary precautions to protect our students and keep our school community as safe as possible.”
Hat tip: Washington Post (reg. req.)
