Please dont quote the trolls or idiots, some of us have them on ignore However in that terrible analogy that person attempted to make, an exact analogy will take place next week, when the KID WILL take the same clock to the white house in the very same manner he brought it to school... to show it off to an authority figure Engineering teacher or in this case President Obama. And guess what, I bet the white house wont call the police and interrogate him as to why he brought a clock with him.
I don't have a problem with that Ahmed said to the teacher. I question why was the teacher being a smartass/jackass in the 1st place, the rational & responsible thing for the teacher to do is to ask him what is that thing instead of jumping into conclusions, insinuating its a bomb & in the process accuse him of doing something illegal & dangerous.
for the thousands time, she said it LOOKED like a bomb and she confiscated it and reported it. All things that anybody would have done. If it weren't suspicious looking, why did the engineering teacher tell him NOT to show it to anybody else, and while he didn't directly show it to anybody else, the fact that the engineering teacher thought it was suspicious enough to warrant telling him that, probably explains why english teacher's reaction to it, not knowing why he would have something like that. you can say all you want that he was a great kid and a good student, but you can't say what is in anybody's head at that moment. He might have been going through a break up with his girlfriend, he might have been depressed, a million things. NEVER EVER ASSUME YOU KNOW
I'm going to guess that the collective amount of time that the teacher, the cop, and what have spent with a soldering iron in hand sums at about 3 seconds.
The moral of the story: don't bring a homemade clock to school, don't be a smart ass about it if somebody questions you on it, or you are going to get your ass interrogated. I have no sympathy for him: he's a typical know-it-all kid that knew full well what he was doing, live with it.
How about, if you are stupid, don't take pride in it. That sounds like a better moral to me. The kid's going for dinner at the white house, and the half of the country that isn't hillbillies is laughing at or feeling sorry for the half that is. Sounds like the kid came out smelling better that the technophobes and Islamophobes.
If she merely thought it looked like a bomb, and not that it was a bomb, then why bring in the authorities and put him in handcuffs and then, also, suspend him? What did he say or not say to make anyone there think that this wasn't a simple misunderstanding? Maybe it looked like a bomb, or maybe it just looks like electronics connected to a clock (which is precisely what it was) and people who are quick to associate "bomb-making" with "young Muslim male" see it as a bomb. If she thought that it could be a real bomb, then (again) the school should have been evacuated. Not sure why that didn't happen. Honestly, I don't really have a big problem with you defending the actions of the school, but the thing I take exception to is your unwillingness to look at it from the student's perspective. You assumed already that he was being rebellious and was purposely trying to cause trouble. How you came to his conclusion, I don't know. Maybe it just didn't occur to him that a device consisting of a clock with wires sticking out of it could be seen as "bomb" by certain people. Afterall, to someone steeped in various electronics projects, its just a hobby, not something to be scared of.
He didn't send the package to the White House. He also didn't leave it unattended in a bathroom or hallway or parking lot or anything as the police speculated he might have done to cause a scare These situations are difference because an unmarked package or an unmarked device left without explanation might indeed make people alarmed. But the student did not do any of that. He brought it to school and first showed it to his engineering teacher with the explanation that it was a clock. He didn't show it to anyone else (as advised by the engineering teacher) and did not leave it out for anyone to see until the English teacher heard the clock making a sound and asked to see it. Nobody thought it was an actual bomb and nothing in the circumstances indicate that he intended to use it to simulate a bomb or cause a scare. I am fine with the teachers or a principal or even a campus cop questioning him. But it's totally idiotic to have him handcuffed, questioned by 5 cops and denied the opportunity to meet with his parents particularly when nobody thought the bomb was real and nobody thought anybody was in imminent danger in an actual "ticking bomb" scenario that might have justified these tactics.
If she actually thought there was even a small chance it was a bomb, the proper course of action would be not just to confiscate it and report it, but to evacuate the classroom and school.
I don't think the kid did anything really wrong. Should he be encouraged to pursue science, yes. Did this incident deter him from it, absolutely not. My only beef is with people who are trying to act as if the school did something extraordinarily harsh to this kid, or that people are trying to make out that he was targeted for this due to his race. That is my only beef. the kid should be encouraged but he also should have some common sense and realize that this might could get him in trouble.
You think the school suspending the kid and the police possibly charging him is an appropriate course of action?
I don't understand what this kid did that warranted having him handcuffed, interrogated for 90 minutes, and suspended for 3 days. Maybe there's more information. But based on the information in the story, it seems like a major overreaction, and its hard to believe that his name and race was in no way a factor.
The clock looks like a "movie bomb". Kids get suspended for bringing fake Fisher Price knives and guns to school. I don't know about police action though.
He was suspended for 3 days, and the police didn't charge him. Very appropriate. He got a slap on the wrist for something that was poor judgement on his part. The only real unfortunate action in this might have been the interrogation and if the police went overboard in "good old boy" fashion. I wouldn't put it past the police that they would do that, but ultimately he wasn't charged for anything. And I also think it was naive to believe that this kid didn't have a clue that people might think it was a threatening object, I still really haven't gotten a good explanation as to why he decided to create this simple project that took him 20 minutes to do, out of the range of other things he could have done. That's my suspicion, but beyond that, the real villains might have been the police department: BUT HE DOES HAVE SOME BLAME ON HIM FO NOT USING GOOD JUDGEMENT
and gets to go to the white house and go on stephen colbert, and probably a dozen other talk shows. He needs the 3 days off.
