14-year-old Ahmed Mohamed, 14, was taken to a juvenile detention center, suspended from school and could still face charges of making a hoax bomb, reported the Dallas News.
The paper reported that Ahmed, a robotics fan who reportedly likes to make his own radios, insists he made a clock and brought the invention into school to show his engineering teacher.
The clock — a circuit board with a power supply wired to a digital display — was confiscated during English class because the alarm kept beeping.
I expect they will have more to say tomorrow, but Ahmed’s sister asked me to share this photo. A NASA shirt! pic.twitter.com/nR4gt992gB
— Anil Dash (@anildash) September 16, 2015
Someone tell the Mohameds to move to NZ we need more genius kids like that here https://t.co/cNfGmcvyPL #helpAhmedMake #stemkids
— Vivian Chandra (@vivster81) September 16, 2015
Schools are becoming paranoid factorys for the stamping out of imagination. Terrible, this. #IStandWithAhmed #helpAhmedmake
— Miso Susanowa (@misosusanowa) September 16, 2015
I’ve been in and out of police stations and schools with THIS deal on. No arrests. #IStandWithAhmed #HelpAhmedMake pic.twitter.com/9Xgcp5i5sy
— J0hnny Xm4s (@J0hnnyXm4s) September 16, 2015
*Kids in Gaza: “Human Shields” *Syrian Refugees: Future Terrorists *Muslim inventor: “Bomb-maker” #IStandWithAhmed pic.twitter.com/NvuyZVNXbW
— Imraan Siddiqi (@imraansiddiqi) September 16, 2015
“She was like, it looks like a bomb,” he told the Dallas News, adding, “It doesn’t look like a bomb to me.”
Ahmed was later taken out of class by the principal and questioned by five police officers who demanded to know his intentions and why he brought the device into school.
“It 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?” said police spokesperson James McLellan.
Ahmed was marched out of the school in handcuffs and taken to a juvenile detention center to take his fingerprints. But the high schooler says he never claimed the device was anything but a clock.
“They thought, ‘How could someone like this build something like this unless it’s a threat?’” Ahmed said.
His father Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed, who had emigrated to the U.S. from Sudan, believes his son’s ethnicity may have been a factor. “He just wants to invent good things for mankind,” he said. “But because his name is Mohamed and because of Sept. 11, I think my son got mistreated.”
