When I was young we had many students doing electronic projects in the school that looked pretty much like this... and never did we have anyone arrested for one of these projects. Only in the modern era of "zero tolerance" would some teacher think this was a dangerous bomb. If the teachers wanted to be "terrified" back-in-the-day they should have come down and seen what we were doing in the Chemistry class lab.
but you were a kid before suicide bombers and school shootings and marathon bombings. I just do not see the issue. He had no expectation of privacy... what is wrong with protecting the other kids and finding out what was up. If the cops overreacted... let them apology... its not like they used deadly force. This is not properly framed as a freedom issue. Its should be framed as a potential weapon issue. Really I am the first one to argue for constitutional rights and I am not big on the militarization of police. But, it was a school and that could have been a bomb. Perhaps I do not know all the facts... What is the issue here other than we feel bad because he sort of fit a stereotype? to me... I am thinking so what... its a stereotype... the kids in the school still need protection. Sorry, young man but some young arabs blow things up for political or religious reasons and we have no border security so we might have those issues here. We had to make sure you were not like that.
What if the teacher hadn't said anything and it would have turned out to be a tragedy instead of a harmless clock???
Wouldn't an actual bomb require an explosive? This looks like a circuit board in a briefcase. I know we don't have high standards for teachers, but shouldn't a college educated person be able to tell the difference in a bomb and a circuit board? Of course we are talking about a group who voted overwhelmingly for Obama, not once but twice.
The teacher referred it to the administrators. The administrators never even asked the boy what the device was before calling the cops to have the student arrested. You would have thought that someone would have asked the boy, "Can you tell us what this is?" The lack of common sense displayed by the school employees in this situation is astounding. "Zero Tolerance" apparently means "not using common sense".
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/09/17/ahmed-mohamed-and-the-islamophobia-clock/ As I was thinking its starting to smell like a setup. If the reporting is accurate... the kid was old enough to know better and to know what it would look like. I would not send my white kids running through a black neighborhood with white sheets in their hands... even if they were going to the dry cleaners. Just because you are innocent does not mean you looked innocent while walking around with a circuit board clock in case. Common sense needs to be exercised. Its my right to tell off cops... Would I? I think its my right to not sign my tax returns for myraid constitutional reasons... do I sign anyway... yes... unfortunately, and it eats a little bit of my soul every time. a. His father has been a little active as an anti islamophobia activist. (something I do not have a problem with in and of itself) b. When questioned about what the device was, Mohamed wouldn’t answer. Now terror-tied Islamic groups like the Hamas-tied Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), their media lapdogs, and even Barack Obama are waging jihad against the school and the local police. When police questioned the boy, WFAA reports, they said he was “passive aggressive” and didn’t give them a “reasonable answer” as to why he had brought his contraption to the school. “We attempted to question the juvenile about what it was and he would simply only say it was a clock. He didn’t offer any explanation as to what it was for, why he created this device, why he brought it to school,” said James McLellan of the Irving Police Department.
He is a 14 year old science nerd and they are expecting Bill Clinton? He was probably so shit-scared he couldn't think straight. He didn't owe them any explanation anyway. It was a freakin' clock. It's not his fault the school drones can't tell the difference. You'd think actual cops would be able to though.
If he was trying to take that device into the White House they would have shot first and questioned him later and Obama would thank them
Its chilling to be honest. Its a fucking clock. Quite a long time ago I managed to make a very small amount of thermite and ignite it in the chem lab at our brand new ultra-modern junior highschool I attended. I was admonished for the damage to the countertop (it burnt straight through a ceramic tile that I figured would contain it lol) and some burns on the floor. They didn't even call my parents. I can't imagine what would happen to me these days. Wow. My school basically knew me and just expected me to show up with sketchy looking devices. I made an adding machine in the 6th grade that used an old rotary dial from a phone and some old electromechanical display i cannibalized out of a surplus norden bombsight I dragged home when a neighbor was cleaning out his garage. It would add numbers you dialed in with the rotary dial and it looked a lot more sinister than this guy's clock. Kids are so screwed these days. On so many levels. It makes me a little sad.