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.”
