Texas school mistakes student's homemade clock for a bomb
When Ahmed Mohamed brought a homemade clock Monday to MacArthur High School in Irving, Texas, the school called police fearing it was a bomb.
The Dallas Morning News reports that instead of attending his student council meeting that day, the 14-year-old boy was taken in handcuffs to juvenile detention.
Police acknowledge that Ahmed told everyone who would listen that his device was a clock, but it wasn't until the boy's predicament became a national story that Irving officials backed off their threats to charge him with a crime.
Irving Police Chief Larry Boyd announced Wednesday that no charges will be filed against Ahmed, and the case is considered closed.
As the school and police were being criticized for overreacting and succumbing to racial and ethnic stereotypes, Boyd also contended the police response to the incident "would have been the same regardless" of the student's skin color or ethnicity.
Ahmed's story went viral on social media, and a Twitter account his sisters created for him, @istandwithahmed, had gained more than 20,000 followers as of Wednesday morning.
President Obama asked Ahmed to bring his homemade clock to the White House.
Video from The Dallas Morning News:
About the Author
Mike Kennedy
Senior Editor
Mike Kennedy has been writing about education for American School & University since 1999. He also has reported on schools and other topics for The Chicago Tribune, The Kansas City Star, The Kansas City Times and City News Bureau of Chicago. He is a graduate of Michigan State University.
