Student Arrested for Clock 'Bomb'

[mirth]

The zero tolerance policy probably is wrong, but that's not the conversation this incident has been trying generate.

[JasonPratt]

I think any narrative account for the facts must also include:

1.) The disassembled clock was very old. Pre-1985 at the latest, maybe late-70s old. We can be nearly deductively certain we can identify the make and model of the clock.

2.) It was put into a small case that looks exactly like a suitcase.

3.) It was not reassembled to look or function much like a clock. It was intentionally presented as a messy bunch of wires and circuit boards inside something that, while small, looked like a suitcase.

4.) Ahmed intentionally set the alarm to beep in the middle of another class, calling attention to it, after his first teacher warned him not to go showing it to other people.

5.) In an interview afterward, Ahmed continued to insist he had designed and invented a clock, instead of merely disassembling an old clock to present as a messy bunch of wires and circuit boards.

6.) During the same interview, Ahmed specifically says he knew ahead of time the package would look suspicious, saying he took steps to make it look less suspicious -- but by doing something trivial (wrapping the power cord around it), not by making it look more like a clock than a messy bunch of wires inside a little suitcase.

[Swatter]

I think we all basically agree on the same facts. I didn't want to spend four hours precisely outlining every single fact and detail of a particular narrative. In order to believe it was a hoax, you must put every single fact into a narrow context and fill in missing information with conspiracy. That rarely works out folks. This (and I apologize in advance) has the feeling of a 9/11 conspiracy. Take the facts that you want, put them into a very specific context, fill in the missing information with dark intentions and villains, and viola conspiracy. I am not saying it wasn't a hoax, but there has not been one solid scrap of evidence that would stand up in a court of law to point to a hoax. Without solid evidence, you are left with spin and innuendo.

Admittedly, if I wanted to perform a bomb hoax, that is the kind of device I would make. It does look like a bomb. At the same time, it could simply be an unfortunate choice by Ahmed. Without evidence to the contrary, you are not on intellectually solid ground to suggest otherwise.

Can someone post a meme about beating a dead horse?

[mirth]

I am not saying it wasn't a hoax, but there has not been one solid scrap of evidence that would stand up in a court of law to point to a hoax.

We actually don't know that either, since the parents will not allow the police to release the report for the incident. The family has controlled the narrative from the get go. If there is spin, it is theirs. Not everyone is buying their version of events. There are plenty of reasons to question the narrative they have provided.

[JasonPratt]

Did those facts seem to fit more into a neutral scenario to you, when accounted with the other known facts?

My impression is that including them didn't improve your estimated likelihood of this all being a completely innocent misunderstanding. But I didn't salt the descriptions with dark conspiracy etc.

For what it's worth, I feel pretty confident I could find a way to fit those details into a fairly innocent misunderstanding. Whether that innocent explanation would feel increasingly strained to this or that person, is another question.

In order to believe it was a hoax, you must put every single fact into a narrow context and fill in missing information with conspiracy.

On the contrary, we can draw an induction (where a set of data suggests a theory's shape, the likelihood of which is then increased or decreased by new data) or abduction (where a hypothesis is proposed and then tested by how well the known facts fit) from the evidence without prejudice. You're acting like dark intentions and villains are completely foreign to the set of facts, but they're actually included in the set of facts: the boy is in close family contact with elders and groups who have a definite history of acting in particular ways.

Since dark intentions, villains, and conspiracy, are all demonstrably part of the set of facts, why shouldn't we factor them into the estimated likelihoods of various theories? Admittedly the connection of these facts to the situation is questionable, although points of contact do pop out (like the cuffs only being on long enough for the Ahmed's sister to snap a photo).

I agree we should regard someone as innocent until proven guilty -- looking for plausible innocent explanations (beyond a false insistence he had designed and invented a clock when he hadn't done any such thing, but that's relatively innocent by itself) is a worthwhile and laudable endeavor.

My only point is that people who are inferring non-innocent explanations (beyond the fake claim to have created a clock from scratch) aren't doing so in a vacuum where all they have are non-suspicious-seeming facts which are only being filled in by imaginary suspicion to look suspicious.

[JasonPratt]

I am not saying it wasn't a hoax, but there has not been one solid scrap of evidence that would stand up in a court of law to point to a hoax.

We actually don't know that either, since the parents will not allow the police to release the report for the incident. The family has controlled the narrative from the get go. If there is spin, it is theirs. Not everyone is buying their version of events. There are plenty of reasons to question the narrative they have provided.

Well said, though technically they could be opportunistically spinning off what was a more innocent original narrative -- although in any case there's a core deception in play by the boy himself which might have shaped how things went. There's a hard limit to how innocent his own actions have been. The salient question is how far that hard limit extends, so to speak.

[mirth]

This horse ain't dead yet :P

[Swatter]

I am not saying that a detective with the local PD  would not have probable cause to investigate. What I am saying is that we need to without judgment without solid evidence. Solid evidence would be an admission of guilt or some sort of physical evidence that directly points to a hoax (like the clock was counting down). Short of that, we are simply filling in the blanks with supposition.

I agree with everyone who says Ahmed does not deserve the attention he received, he didn't "invent" anything.

[mirth]

Look at the device he brought to school. It's appearance alone is enough to warrant the response it generated. Like Bill Maher noted, try taking that 'clock' through an airport screening and see what happens.

[Bison]

Unfortunately Swatter the withholding of judgment until facts were presented were trumped within hours following the event.  It's one of the reasons I dislike 24 hour "news" and twitter depth analysis "politics".  We should just become a society of memes and move onto our demise. 

[Bison]

Look at the device he brought to school. It's appearance alone is enough to warrant the response it generated. Like Bill Maher noted, try taking that 'clock' through an airport screening and see what happens.

I'd like to mention I pointed this out way back in the beginning of the discussion.  The damned thing never looked anything like a freaking clock.

[Swatter]

Unfortunately Swatter the withholding of judgment until facts were presented were trumped within hours following the event.  It's one of the reasons I dislike 24 hour "news" and twitter depth analysis "politics".  We should just become a society of memes and move onto our demise.

We are moving onto something. You don't need much imagination to see some really bad scenarios playing out on a societal level.

[mirth]

Look at the device he brought to school. It's appearance alone is enough to warrant the response it generated. Like Bill Maher noted, try taking that 'clock' through an airport screening and see what happens.

I'd like to mention I pointed this out way back in the beginning of the discussion.  The damned thing never looked anything like a freaking clock.

You did and I don't disagree. In the opening hours of the incident, it was spun to sound like a kid who had invented a homemade clock. There was nothing reported at the time indicating his intent was to create a hoax bomb. In the following days, lots of information came to light that points to that being exactly his intent. I bit on the early spin. I was wrong.

[Bison]

Thanks.  But my point was more that I made the call way before Bill Maher.  :D

[mirth]

Thanks.  But my point was more that I made the call way before Bill Maher.  :D

I wouldn't exactly wear that as a badge :P