Student Arrested for Clock 'Bomb'

[mirth]

^That pieces it together quite well. And yes, we have been trolled.

[mirth]

[mirth]

Even Bill Maher thinks it looks like a bomb

[LongBlade]

^That pieces it together quite well. And yes, we have been trolled.

The background of happenings in Irving is the context we were missing. We knew something didn't add up - we simply didn't know what. Now we do.

[mirth]

When I agree with Bill Maher, I know I'm screwed.

[JasonPratt]

I would dearly love to be a bug on the wall when-if-ever Ahmed gets his White House visit with Obama after this.

THAT WAS A METAPHOR, NSA!!

[bayonetbrant]

My point being that if they legitimately thought it was a bomb, why not evacuate.  If it wasn't a bomb, why handcuff a kid.  Pull him to the principal's office, sure.  Call in the parents?  Yep.  Handcuffs and perp walk for a 14-yo?  Seriously?

[mirth]

It should have been handled better, but I'm inclined to think it was a deliberate effort to trigger a police response, orchestrated by the father and family.

Watch the Bill Maher segment. Mark Cuban talked to the kid on the phone and said he could hear the sister coaching her brother on his responses.

[LongBlade]

I'm inclined to think it was a deliberate effort to trigger a police response, orchestrated by the father and family.

This.

I suspect this was done to make it completely clear that a hoax like this will be taken seriously. His father is a Grade A provocateur. The cuffs were to let the kid know that the game the kid is playing has very real and bad consequences. Maybe he'll straighten out where his father did not.

Having digested what I believe is the full story, I'm 100% behind the cops cuffing him. They should have hauled him off to jail for a few hours for good measure.

[mirth]

I'm inclined to think it was a deliberate effort to trigger a police response, orchestrated by the father and family.

This.

I suspect this was done to make it completely clear that a hoax like this will be taken seriously. His father is a Grade A provocateur. The cuffs were to let the kid know that the game the kid is playing has very real and bad consequences. Maybe he'll straighten out where his father did not.

Having digested what I believe is the full story, I'm 100% behind the cops cuffing him. They should have hauled him off to jail for a few hours for good measure.

Well they did haul him off to a juvenile detention center.

It makes it easier to understand why they questioned him for a lengthy period, without the parents. They were likely trying to get information about the father's involvement.

[Swatter]

The hoax theory- I am not happy with that. Yes, it sounds fishy, but that doesn't mean it was a hoax.

When it was clear a mistake had been made (no bomb or even solid evidence of a hoax), the parents should have been called and a conference should have taken place. Instead the police were called, he was arrested and interrogated (the police seriously went fishing) without his parents present. That is freaking ridiculous. I am all for the teacher acting on their gut feeling, no problem there. When it was clear an honest mistake had been made, somebody should have called his parents and the craziness stopped there.

I think this zero tolerance stuff is insane. Teachers and administrators need discretion. Even after hearing all the stuff about his dad and that the clock wasn't all that original, my core reaction remains unchanged. I want my children safe in school. I want them protected by sound policy and alert teachers, not by over reaction to trivial incidents after the fact.

[mirth]

Apparently the parents ducked attempts by the school and police to meet with them. And now the family is not allowing the school/police to release records of the incident.

http://townhall.com/columnists/kyleshideler/2015/09/22/irving-mayor-ahmed-mohameds-family-blocking-release-of-records-obama-tweeted-support-even-before-clock-pic-released-n2055545

Van Duyne said that according to the information she had seen, Mohammed had been "non-responsive" and "passive aggressive" in response to questions from police officers. The refusal to amiably resolve the situation continued as the family rushed to bring Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) representatives into the case, and repeatedly cancelled meetings with the school district and city officials before finally speaking to the media.
"We had tried to reach out to the family a number of times; this was before it ever even hit the papers on Wednesday," Van Duyne said pointing out that the family repeatedly canceled attempts to discuss the matter.
"At the exact same time they were supposed to be meeting with us, they were on their front lawn with a press conference," she said.
Van Duyne also pointed out that President Obama, like many others, had rushed to judgment before the facts in the case had become available.
"We never even got a call from anybody at the White House asking to verify any of that information. I don't think the picture of the hoax bomb was even released before he tweeted 'cool clock kid.'" Van Duyne said.

[mirth]

Kid cleaned up too




http://fortune.com/2015/09/21/ahmed-mohamed-schwag/

[Nefaro]

I've still read no specifics of the interaction between Briefcase-Clock Kid and the school authorities when this incident happened.  For all we know, he could've been a smartass about practicing his bomb-making skills.  If he learned bad habits from his father.. who knows how it went down.

We certainly won't know the full details if the family refuses to release them.  From what I understand, that is all kept secret for juveniles.  So the press can continue to jump to whatever conclusions they feel like implying.

[mirth]

This guy pretty much nails it

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/ahmed-mohamed-clock-bomb-media-narrative-ian-tuttle

So perhaps everything unfolded exactly as originally reported: Ahmed "built" a clock, he simply wanted to show it off, a teacher panicked. But even to those who think that administrators and/or law enforcement overreacted (which I do), or that Ahmed was victimized by his skin color (which I don't), the details above suggest legitimate questions. In a saner political culture, those questions would have preceded the creation and propagation of the narrative.