
The homemade clock Ahmed Mohamed brought to school was mistaken for a bomb. (Irving Police Department)
Why a ninth-grader’s arrest over a home-built clock struck a chord across America
A week after 9/11, a lapse of judgement ?
By Abby Phillip and Sarah Kaplan September 16 at 6:20 PM
Ahmed Mohamed just wanted to impress his teachers with a homemade invention. The story of what happened next has made the 14-year-old from Irving, Tex., the object of national outrage and attention.
Eager to show off to his engineering teacher, Mohamed walked into MacArthur High School on Monday morning with his hastily assembled invention: A digital clock.
Hours later, the ninth-grader was escorted out of the school in police custody after teachers mistook the device for a bomb.
The incident has triggered allegations of racism and made a Texas school district the target of outrage that began online and quickly spilled into the most powerful offices in the land.
As the story spread, along with a photo of Mohamed in a NASA T-shirt and handcuffs, support came flooding in.
“Cool clock, Ahmed,” President Obama wrote in a tweet Wednesday. “Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It’s what makes America great.”
Time and time again I have been impressed by the restraint and common sense of our Superintendent and Principals in relation to these types of events. The nude pictures on the phones didn’t lead to arrests. The guy taking pictures for his class reunion didnt lead to evacuations and armed guards. etc. I am sure that our logical and rational staff would have taken a look and recognized that this was a science experiment.
Sure, at the risk of being politically incorrect I must say that when the clock was shown on TV it did look like a bomb, the kind that has been shown on TV before, a homemade bomb.
Kids have been killing people in schools and churches ,and marathons, we all know. If that had been a bomb , look how the school officials and police would have been maligned, blamed, accused of not being cautious enough.
Out of caution there is nothing wrong with making sure the invention wasn’t a bomb. It is not because a Muslim kid brought it in, but just because it did indeed resemble a bomb.
The kid would have survived with just educating him as to WHY authorities thought it was a bomb. I sure hope the police didn’t beat the kid up when they took him into custody, or were physically rough with him. I am worried about police behavior too.
I am soooooo politically incorrect. I appreciate being able to express myself anonymously on this blog. Express my real true feelings.
Better safe then dead
The engineering teacher did not recognize a homemade clock?
Yea, some engineering teacher! How the hell did this happen to this poor kid….
The child, probably (but perhaps not certainly) innocent of any bad intent, should know that he is the object of solicitous warm feelings from Obama not because of any achievement on his part (he merely ripped the guts out of a clock radio and partially reassembled them), but because of his name. A Meagan McGillicudy, a Heshi Lipschitz, a Mary Smith, a Charlie Chan, a Giacomo Mellifluoso, or even a Laquisha or a LaQuaan, none of these people were going to pique the interest of the white house with a sophomoric attempt at home-built electronics that eerily resembled a bomb timer. Nope, none of these people sound likely to adhere to the president’s favorite “religion of peace.” Why is the resident of our executive mansion such a dedicated practitioner of taqiyya?
“See something, say something is now racism.”
Father of Muslim bomb hoax clockster was Qur’an’s defense attorney against Terry Jones in mock trial
ByPAMELA GELLER on September 17, 2015
When I first posted this story, I said it smelled fishy. Now it positively stinks. Does this look like a clock to you?
And now the plot thickens. In what has become one of the most egregious of the faked hate narratives, the bomb hoax clockster has a family with a history of supremacist stunts.
“One of the earliest instances of the standout citizen making national news was in 2011, when he sensationally stood up to an anti-Islamic pastor and defended the Koran as its defense attorney. That mock trial at a Florida church ended with the book’s burning, to ElHassan’s claimed shock. In an interview with the Washington Post at the time, the devoted Muslim said he’d take on Rev. Terry Jones’ challenge because the holy book teaches that Muslims should engage in peaceful dialogue with Christians.”
Also in 2011, ElHassan debated Robert Spencer on “Does Islam Respect Human Rights?” Clearly, he was trying to score against a famous “Islamophobe” and thus win a name for himself. ElHassan has been looking for publicity and chances to fight against “Islamophobia” for a considerable period. Now he has seized it, going so far as to claim his son was “tortured” by school and law enforcement officials.
School officials were being prudent, protecting the children. Irving, Texas has had its share of jihad and sharia. The Said sisters were honor-murdered by their father, execution-style. He is still at large. Irving Texas is only half an hour from Garland, Texas — site of jihad shooting on a free speech event in May. And the news is riddled with stories of young Muslims, just like Ahmed, all lovely, sweet achievers who suddenly — go jihad.
This story is pure agitprop most fatal. “If you see something, say something” is now racism.
Backstory: A Muslim teen bought a strange ticking device to his high school that set off alarms and fear. The student was detained for having what resembled a bomb. Officers said the clock and wires inside his Vaultz pencil case looked like a hoax bomb to them. When questioned about the device was, the student, Ahmed Mohamed, wouldn’t answer. Now terror-tied Islamic groups like Hamas-CAIR, their media lapdogs and even President Obama are waging jihad against the school.
Obama has invited Ahmed to the White House. NASA has also invited Ahmed to meet with them, as has Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook.
– See more at: https://pamelageller.com/2015/09/father-of-muslim-bomb-hoax-clockster-was-qurans-defense-attorney-against-terry-jones.html/#sthash.7NW9fqni.dpu
Muslim group doesn’t fault school or police for boy’s arrest
IRVING, Texas — One of the largest Muslim groups in Texas said Thursday that it does not fault police and school officials who handcuffed and suspended a 14-year-old Muslim boy after he brought a homemade clock to class that they mistook for a possible bomb.
Instead, Khalid Hamideh of the Islamic Association of North Texas blamed political leaders for espousing inflammatory anti-Muslim rhetoric and creating a “climate of fear.”
“We’re not pointing a finger at the school district or the police department,” Hamideh said. “Under the current climate that exists in this country, you can’t really blame them because when they see something like that, they have to react.”
The association operates the mosque attended by the family of Ahmed Mohamed, the suburban Dallas student who became a sensation on social media after word spread about his clock and the way he was treated.
Ahmed was pulled from class Monday after he showed the device to a teacher. He was questioned by the principal and police, then handcuffed and taken to the police station.
The Muslim community is concerned that Ahmed was interrogated without a lawyer or his parents present and was led out in handcuffs, Hamideh said.
Irving Police Chief Larry Boyd has said department policy requires that handcuffs be used to protect officers and others.
Authorities declined to seek charges against the boy, saying there was no evidence he intended to cause alarm. They said he’s free to retrieve his clock at the police station.
A police photo of the device shows a carrying case containing a circuit board and power supply wired to a digital display.
School district spokeswoman Lesley Weaver did not return a call for comment Thursday but previously said school administrators followed district policy, which allows staff to take action if a student has a “look-alike” weapon or engages in behaviors that “substantially disrupt or materially interfere with school activities.”
Ahmed’s father, Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed, said Thursday that his son would not be returning to MacArthur High School. He said the family is still deciding on where he will go next.
The boy’s sister, Ayisha Mohamed, 17, said Thursday she believes her brother is helping to change people’s minds about Muslims.
She said her “heart just dropped” when she heard police had detained him. “It was a bad thing that turned into a blessing,” she said.
As Ahmed’s story spread across social media, Twitter soon erupted with support for the teen. The hashtag #IStandWithAhmed was tweeted more than 1 million times.
President Barack Obama invited him to the White House, and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg posted that he wanted to meet him. A NASA scientist asked Ahmed to give him a call in a couple of years for a job opportunity.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott also weighed in, cautioning that he did not know all the facts but that police were mistaken to arrest the boy.
“The last thing we want to do is put handcuffs on a kid unjustifiably,” he told The Dallas Morning News. “It looks like the commitment to law enforcement may have gone too far.”
On Thursday, Irving high school students said Ahmed has a reputation as a tinkerer and creator. He made small robotics, fixed people’s phones and assembled a remote that could turn on projectors at school, they said.
“I remember seeing him in middle school, and he used to always bring stuff,” said Sara Williams, 15. “He was just one of those kids that created stuff.”
Nicholas Martin, also 15, said authorities “were just taking precautions” when they confiscated the clock, but he believes they overreacted because of Ahmed’s ethnicity.
Ahmed’s father emigrated from Sudan and twice ran for the presidency of that country.
Fourteen-year-old Pedro Andrade said school officials were right to be cautious but added, “If they really did think that it was a bomb, why didn’t they evacuate?”
The controversy follows other incidents this year involving anti-Muslim sentiment, including a backlash against a proposed Muslim cemetery northeast of Dallas and a Republican lawmaker who told her staff to ask visiting Muslims to declare allegiance to America. Also, the Irving City Council endorsed one of several bills in the state Legislature to forbid judges from rulings based on “foreign laws.”
“All of these people who push this hate agenda need to engage the Muslim community and to understand the Muslim identity in this country,” Hamideh said.
Back in May, Texas law enforcement was on heightened alert when two men opened fire in the Dallas suburb of Garland outside a center hosting a cartoon contest with depictions of the prophet Muhammad. Both attackers were shot dead, and an officer was shot in the leg. From the other side of the world, the Islamic State group made an unproven claim of responsibility.
Cathie Adams, president of the conservative Texas Eagle Forum and former chairwoman of the Texas Republican Party, said Thursday that Ahmed’s clock looked suspicious and that authorities were right to act.
She said the boy was “pushing the envelope” and provoking a response. “Was he testing the system? And why?”
The school administrators acted stupidly.
If I had had a son, he would have looked like Ahmed Mohammed.
Mayor Of City Where Muslim Teen Was Wrongly Arrested Is Anti-Sharia Crusader
To her supporters, Irving, Texas Mayor Beth Van Duyne is a tough-as-nails politician who’s not afraid to take on Islam.
To her critics, Van Duyne is a fear-monger who stokes the flames of Islamophobia.
So both Van Duyne’s fans and foes can surely find a talking point in the Monday incident where Irving policearrested 14-year-old Ahmed Mohamed for bringing a homemade clock to school that they thought looked like a “movie bomb.”
Van Duyne first made headlines for challenging Islam in February, when she wrote a Facebook post vowing to look into a “Shariah law court” that was said to have been set up by an Irving mosque.
“While I am working to better understand how this ‘court’ will function and whom will be subject to its decisions, please know that if it is determined that there are violations of basic rights occurring, I will not stand idle and will fight with every fiber of my being against this action,” she wrote.
But the “Shariah law court” wasn’t actually headquartered in Irving, which abuts Dallas, nor did it have anything to do with the Islamic Center of Irving. A note on the homepage of Dallas’ Islamic Tribunal, which settle civil disputes between Muslims for a fee, aimed to disambiguate the two.
“Media speculation has led members of the local community to wonder if the Islamic Center of Irving is facilitating ‘Shariah Courts’ at the Mosque,” the Islamic Tribunal’s website read. “The management of the Islamic Center of Irving categorically declares that no such court operates on the center’s premises. No other mosque in the area operates such courts. However, the Islamic Tribunal that operates in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, independent of the mosques, to address a genuine need within our faith community for intra-community arbitration.”
Then in March, Van Duyne threw her support behind a bill that would forbid Texas judges from using foreign law in their rulings. The bill’s author, state Rep. Jeff Leach (R), had said the bill would solve the “problem” of the Islamic Tribunal in Dallas, according to the Dallas Morning News.
Van Duyne made the conservative media rounds to talk about the “American laws for American courts” effort, giving interviews to Dana Loesch and Glenn Beck. She spoke with Frank Gaffney, the founder of the anti-Muslim think tank Center for Security Policy, on his radio show. Conspiracy theory site WND ran a piece on Van Duyne under the headline “Mayor Takes Stand Against Muslim Shariah Courts.”
She also capitalized on the newfound attention with a Facebook fundraising plea.
“Recent events have put me under attack and I need your help now! Stand with me to help me fight for conservative values and the Constitution,” she wrote on March 25.
Amid criticism of her support for Leach’s bill, Van Duyne turned to the editorial pages of The Dallas Morning News to further propagate what she saw as a non-controversial message.
“To me, this is about making sure people, especially women, understand our nation guarantees certain rights and liberties, and those should not be surrendered,” she wrote in The Dallas Morning News. “It is baffling to comprehend the amount of controversy generated by my support as mayor of Irving for a state law that simply asks family law judges to uphold American fundamental constitutional rights when deciding a case that involves a conflicting foreign law.”
By July, it was The Dallas Morning News’ editorial board that chastised Van Duyne for traveling to speak to tea party activists instead of focusing on the needs of the community she represents.
“Van Duyne’s focus on the city’s growth earned her our recommendation in 2014. But we also urged her to build ‘cooperation and unity,'” the editorial read. “She’s failed at that part of the job. An important part of Irving’s population is Muslim, and the city is home to a major mosque.”
“Van Duyne could spend her time more productively by reaching out the local Muslim community instead of catering to tea party voters who feed on fear about Islam and relish shots at the press,” the editorial continued.
While Van Duyne had spent the better part of the past eight months speaking out against Sharia law, she did not mention Mohamed’s background in a Wednesday Facebook post reacting to his arrest.
“I do not fault the school or the police for looking into what they saw as a potential threat,” she wrote. “They have procedures to run when a possible threat or criminal act is discovered. They follow these procedures in the sole interest of protecting our children and school personnel…I hope this incident does not serve as a deterrent against our police and school personnel from maintaining the safety and security of our schools.”
She went on to write that she hoped the incident wouldn’t discourage Mohamed or other students from pursuing their passion for engineering.
No charges were ultimately filed against Mohamed, who has since beeninvited to visit the White House, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Texas at Austin and Facebook’s headquarters.
Caitlin Cruz contributed to this report.
The father stages events to fight “islamophobia”
1 posted on Fri Sep 18 2015 11:38:47 GMT-0400 (EDT) by Ray76
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]
Comments on another website:
“This whole “fighting Islamophobia” concept has a real name – softening the target”
“When I first read about this a couple of days ago I said right then that it is a “put up job” and 0bozo is in on it!”
“Look at the pictures, the “clock” was intentionally made to look like a bomb and I haven’t seen any justification concerning why he should bring it to school.”
“Daddy said the kid is leaving that school…and the father will be searching for schools both inside and outside of this country. Outside?? Now that is interesting.”
“Bet we find out in a few years the kid became a fighter for ISIS.”
A Muslim teen, fourteen-year-old Ahmed Mohamed, bought a strange ticking device to his school, MacArthur High School. His device caused alarm and fear, and he was detained for having what his teacher perceived as a bomb. Police officers said the electronic components and wires inside his Vaultz pencil case (which is the size of a briefcase) looked like a “hoax bomb,” according to local news station WFAA
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’s a plant. The 14-year old all-American schoolboy clockmaker didn’t make a clock at all. He’s the son of a belligerent Muslim activist and perennial Sudanese presidential candidate whose brother runs a trucking company amusingly called Twin Towers Transportation.
Ahmed, you didn’t build that. Radio Shack sold it. #StandWithAhmed
Posted by Neil Stevens on September 18, 2015 at 10:00 pm
Ahmed, you didn’t build that. Radio Shack sold it. #StandWithAhmed
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The left had a triple whammy of self-congratulation this week when Texas teenager Ahmed was arrested(!) for bringing a bomb to school. The problem is, allegedly, he had brought to school a digital clock he built, to show to class. So this was allegedly a case of Texas being racist and anti-Science™!
Except most of the facts were wrong. He didn’t build the clock, and the school had reason to believe it looked like a bomb.
Anthony at Art Voice has taken down the situation thoroughly (link via Sean Davis). Anthony did his homework, studied the photos, and found that the clock Ahmed allegedly built, was originally sold at Radio Shack. Pictured is the clock Ahmed put into a case to bring to school: a Micronta 63 756, sold by Radio Shack:
The shape and design is a dead give away. The large screen. The buttons on the front laid out horizontally would have been on a separate board – a large snooze button, four control buttons, and two switches to turn the alarm on and off, and choose two brightness levels. A second board inside would have contained the actual “brains” of the unit. The clock features a 9v battery back-up, and a switch on the rear allows the owner to choose between 12 and 24 hour time. (Features like a battery back-up, and a 24 hour time selection seems awful superfluous for a hobby project, don’t you think?) Oh, and about that “M” logo on the circuit board mentioned above? Micronta.
That’s right, Ahmed didn’t even bother to remove the silkscreened logo and part number Micronta printed onto the circuit board. Anthony also points out the other killer element: Why would you put a clock in a pencil case? It has a lid, that closes, meaningyou’ll never actually be able to read the display. Anthony’s conclusion logically follows:
Because, is it possible, that maybe, just maybe, this was actually a hoax bomb? A silly prank that was taken the wrong way? That the media then ran with, and everyone else got carried away? Maybe there wasn’t even any racial or religious bias on the parts of the teachers and police.
The left-wing smart set just got fooled, badly
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If the kid’s intention was to create a hoax bomb then he deserved to be arrested. Sorry, if you’re a Muslim you don’t get to cross that line. It isn’t funny. I don’t want some innocent kid getting harassed or arrested either but I’m not going to have much empathy for making this kid some kind of hero either. Americans and people around the world are dying to Muslim terrorists and if anyone should be apologizing and treading carefully in the public square it should be Muslims.
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Well, this modern day fairy tale does have this value – it reinforces that Muslim cultures seemingly can’t originate, only appropriate. Absent the technology/ knowledge transfers of the last 60 years to Arab/ Muslim states, the biggest threat they’d pose to US interests is the occasional thrown shoe or camel patty at one of our diplomats..
(Ironic, isn’t it. Lenin was right – he just was right on behalf of the wrong people)
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I’d rather #StandWCJ
CJ Pearson tore into the pres on youtube over inviting Ahmed. Also got a big write up in Wapo.
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“Mr. President,” he began, speaking with a Southern twang. “When Kate Steinle was gunned down by an illegal immigrant, you didn’t do anything. You didn’t even call the family. You didn’t invite them to the White House. Is that okay? I don’t think so, Mr. President.”
“When cops are being gunned down, you don’t invite their family to the White House,” he said. “You never did.”
“When a Muslim kid builds a clock?” CJ said. “Well, come on by. What is this world that you are living in?”
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13 years old, African American, National chairman of Teens for Ted (Cruz), and so very articulate for his age. I wonder if the President will send him a tweet. “Cool youtube vid, CJ., come to the Whitehouse.” I’d rather hashtag with CJ ‘sted of Ahmed.
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Obama and Hilary jumped on the clock story almost as quickly as jumped on the Benghazi “hateful” video. Coincidence?
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Building a clock and housing it inside a case was the first giveaway for me.
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Isn’t it astonishing how quickly the sheeple follow the instant news lead of the day before giving themselves just a little time of trial to discern between the truth and the lie, giving information just a little time to show its real heart and agenda. O my God, I cannot believe how easily stupid mortals fall before that great lying heart that seeks to consume us all and slay our hearts. May our God have mercy!
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Also read somewhere it was rigged on a countdown and had an occasional beep.
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I believe that is a feature on the clock in question.
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I wonder if Barry will take young Ahmed on a shopping trip around D.C. and visit, maybe, a Spy Gadgets or Sharper Image or maybe even a local Radio Shack where he can buy a new clock to replace the one he disassembled and then reassembled into that pencil box.