IRVING, Texas, Sept. 16 (UPI) — Ahmed Mohamed, a 14-year-old-boy, was arrested in Texas for bringing to school a homemade clock teachers mistook for a bomb — a detention some claim was due to his Muslim background.
Ahmed brought in the clock to show his engineering teacher at the city of Irving’s MacArthur High School first thing Monday morning.
“He was like, ‘That’s really nice,’ ” Ahmed told The Dallas Morning News. ” ‘I would advise you not to show any other teachers.’ ”
Ahmed, who said he has enjoyed robotics since middle school, put the clock inside his school bag but during an English class, the clock beeped. He showed the complaining teacher.
“She was like, it looks like a bomb,” Ahmed said. “I told her, ‘It doesn’t look like a bomb to me.’ ”
The teacher kept the clock and Ahmed, who was wearing a NASA shirt, was later pulled out of a class to meet with the principal and five police officers.
“Yup. That’s who I thought it was,” reportedly said a police officer who Ahmed had never seen before.
“They were like, ‘So you tried to make a bomb?’ ” Ahmed said. “I told them ‘no, I was trying to make a clock.’ He said, ‘It looks like a movie bomb to me.’ ”
Ahmed was arrested and taken to juvenile detention, causing him to miss a student council meeting. The school principal suspended Ahmed for three days, according to his family.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations said it was investigating the event.
“I think this wouldn’t even be a question if his name wasn’t Ahmed Mohamed,” said Alia Salem, of the council’s local branch. “He is an excited kid who is very bright and wants to share it with his teachers.”
Ahmed’s father, Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed, a Sudanese immigrant, believes his son was mistreated for his Muslim roots.
“He just wants to invent good things for mankind,” Mohamed said. “But because his name is Mohamed and because of Sept. 11, I think my son got mistreated.”
Police spokesman James McLellan said there was “no information that [Ahmed] claimed it was a bomb” and that “he kept maintaining it was a clock, but there was no broader explanation.”
Officers did not believe Ahmed was telling them everything during the interview, prompting the arrest.
“It could reasonably be mistaken as a device if left in a bathroom or under a car,” McLellan added. “The concern was, what was this thing built for? Do we take him into custody?”
