IRVING, Texas, Sept. 18 (UPI) — The Texas teen who was arrested when his high school teachers and local police mistook a homemade clock for a bomb will not return to the school, instead transferring to another school in response to the incident.
Ahmed Mohamed, 14, said Thursday he will not return to MacArthur High School after he was arrested for bringing a device to school that teachers and administrators mistook for a bomb. Ahmed said he was removed from his classroom by five police officers and the principal and interrogated for hours without his parents present. Police called it a “naive accident.”
“I really want to go to MIT,” Ahmed said. “I’m thinking about transferring schools from MacArthur to any different school.”
The comment got a quick response from MIT.
Ahmed, who enjoys robotics, said he built the clock to impress his teacher and things quickly went awry.
“When I showed it to her, she thought it was a threat to her. It was really sad that she took the wrong impression of it — and later that day, I was arrested for it,” he said.
Police said they took Ahmed into custody as a safety measure based on the appearance of the device. He was handcuffed and taken to the police station. He said police interviewed him for about an hour and a half, not allowing him to call his parents.
“Under Texas law, a person is guilty of possessing a hoax bomb if he possesses a device that is intended to cause anyone to be alarmed or a reaction of any type by law enforcement officers,” Irving police Chief Larry Boyd said.
The incident generated an outpouring of support from business leaders including Facebook chief executive and founder Mark Zuckerberg and President Barack Obama.
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