The clock gun looks like a gun. The engineering student brought a small pencil box with some wires in it. Open up literally any electronics device and it will look exactly like what he brought to class. I know you absolutely love giving racists and systemic racism a pass, but listen to yourself for a moment. This kid got ARRESTED, not suspended. It was clearly an excessive response and him being Muslim had to do with it.
I know some are foolish enough to think that the reason the kid got ARRESTED was because of his race or religion, but that's simply not the case. You just don't understand the current state of public schools in America. You play around, they arrest you. The kid had no cause to bring the device to school, it's not something he built, just something that was taken out of a case and put in a box. I don't think it's a coincidence that it had an extra large LED screen so as to be as visible as possible. Some of you people are just WAY too naive.....and you know what? That's fine. We need people like you in the world.
Remember that it's not "just wires". There is a large red digital-display across the underside of the lid. When opened up, it looks like every other bomb from every other Hollywood movie or television show. Watching movies and TV does not make us bomb experts, but it certainly gives us an impression and foundation on which to judge what a bomb looks like.
Well another school suspended kids for bring chess clocks to school. Yes these are the clocks used to keep track of time in chess games. Are school admins trained by idiots?
My favorite 9/11 denier reasoning is, "If a building was hit by an airplane, it wouldn't colapse like that." Really? How many buildings have you seen hit by airplanes that you can say what it should look like? Everybody needs a greater respect for the things they aren't qualified to give an opinion on. A principal with no science education whatsoever should call the physics teacher in to give a more expert opinion before calling the cops.
Honestly, I don't think race has anything to do with it. The stupid Zero-tolerance rules in schools is the problem. It's the reason why a mentally handicapped white kid was suspended for pointing his fingers like a gun and "firing" in his class. Or the white boy who ate his pop-tart in the shape of a gun in class was suspended. Or the white boy who made a paper gun was suspended. These are all over-reactions, just like the Ahmed clock case is an overreaction. I don't think any of these kids (including Ahmed) should've been suspended, but the schools hands are tied because of zero-tolerance policies. I do think the cops could've refused to arrest him (thats assuming they talked to his science teacher to check out his story..but it honestly doesn't sound like Ahmed told them the entire story at first). It was stupid on all sides. While I blame the school for overreacting, I cannot blame them for saying the clock looks like a bomb - Especially with the way TV and movies have given us a vision of all bombs having a digital clock attached to a bunch of wires. Here are some real bombs for example:
these other kids weren't cuffed and detained. it absolutely has been blown out of proportion....but hauling him to the office wasn't such a big deal. the story is pliable enough, however, to fit whatever narrative we want to champion.
It's not really large, unless you define a pencil box as large. The 4 digit LED is probably around 1"x2". A bomb needs bomb material. There is no bomb material. I hope and think we want folks dealing with kids uses more information than impression and foundation based on films (or culture, views, etcs). We want objective assessment, not bias and prejudice. We also shouldn't treat kids as criminals when they have not commit criminal acts. The whole ordeal could be handled so much better. Take him into a room and talk to him. Call up his parent. Call up the teachers that knows him. Call up the school's physiologist or counselor. If still more information is needed, take him to the station, escorted, but there is no need to handcuff him.
There is a key part missing from Ahmed's device that all the other show. The part that goes boom. I'm a pretty tolerant guy except for willful ignorance, and unfortunately, there are a lot of willfully ignorant people in the world.
I get it. The display isn't a jumbotron but it is also bigger than a digital watch. In fact, it looks to be the same size display as you would see in any of the Die Hard movies. The engineering teacher instructed him to put it away, though he should have gone a step further and instructed him to disconnect the power source. Placing the kid in handcuffs was a bit extreme but I feel the suspension was warranted.
I'm curious on what grounds does the child deserve to be suspended? Bringing in a clock that causes administration and law enforcement to make poor decisions and overreact isn't a grounds for suspension in any code that I've seen.
Generally onboard with you, but I don't think this is a good argument. In the Plessy case, the crime was being black in the wrong place; maybe illegal at the time, but not inherently dangerous. The accusation here is that he brought a hoax bomb to school. Since it's just a hoax, it's not dangerous, but it is an implicit threat of violence. If it was actually a hoax bomb, they'd be justified in at least some of the reactions they had. The problem here is not so much the way they handle hoax bombs, but why they thought what Mohammed brought was a hoax bomb. So, if the Mohammed family did somehow engineer this event, then it was indeed a hoax bomb all along and they'd deserve all the trouble they got. Done on purpose, this isn't any kind of victory for civil liberties. The point and the central feature of this whole ridiculous show is that it wasn't done on purpose, that the idea that people would see his clock as a hoax bomb never once crossed the kid's mind. The kid's defense crumbles if it is shown otherwise -- but the idea that this event was intentionally engineered is a mite ridiculous and I don't think anyone has shown anything to indicate it was.
His story doesn't add up. According to the BBC he built the clock for his teacher who over reacted and thought it was a threat. Though the BBC also reports he built it for his engineering teacher who congratulated him and instructed him to not show anyone else. According to Mark Cuban he showed the clock to every teacher there after. Then according to the BBC it was another teacher who discovered the clock due to its "beeping". Something doesn't add up. According to the police he was not forthcoming. That's probably because his story does not add up. Until they can clear up the confusion, which shouldn't take more than a day or two, he should be suspended.
First of all, showing it to other teachers even after the first teacher told a kid not to, doesn't warrant a suspension. Second of all he didn't show it to every teacher afterward or the English teacher wouldn't have been surprised when it rang or beeped from his backpack in class. As to the police, there are plenty of reasons why he may not have been forthcoming. 1. They were asking him such stupid questions that he couldn't understand what they were getting at. 2. He was scared, and unable to call his parents. 3. He had no clue what they were worried about since all he had was a clock, and they were talking about something far more serious. 4. Even if the police said that, they shouldn't have been called in the first place, and again there isn't anything he did that would seem to warrant suspension.
Clearly the "showing it to them" method wasn't getting the desired result and the day was running out so he changed methods and had it simply make noise in his bag to get the desired results.
That's your own idea which isn't based on the facts. If that's all the evidence that you need to suspend a kid, then you shouldn't be passing judgment. It sounds more like you have a preconceived idea of why the student brought the clock and are twisting things to fit your desired outcome.
