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Texas teen handcuffed, arrested for bringing homemade clock to school

A 14-year-old Texas boy was arrested and taken to juvenile detention Monday after teachers mistook the homemade electronic clock he had brought to school for a bomb.

Ahmed Mohamed, 14, taken to detention for building what police called a 'hoax bomb'

John Bowman · CBC News ·
Texas teen Ahmed Mohamed was arrested and taken to juvenile detention Monday after teachers mistook the homemade electronic clock he had brought to school for a bomb. (Anil Dash/Twitter)

A 14-year-old Texas boy was arrested and taken to juvenile detention Monday after teachers mistook the homemade electronic clock he had brought to school for a bomb. 

Ahmed Mohamed, a Grade 9 student at MacArthur High School in Irving, has been suspended for three days. Police initially said he may face charges of making a hoax bomb, but later said the case had been closed without charges. 

Police acknowledged that Ahmed had insisted to teachers, the principal and police that his creation was nothing but a clock. 

The clock consisted of a circuit board and battery wired to a red LED digital display, encased inside a metal box with a tiger hologram on it, the type of case "you could get a Target for five, 10 dollars," Ahmed told the Dallas Morning News. 

He showed it to his engineering teacher Monday morning. 

"He was like, 'That's really nice,'" Ahmed said. "'I would advise you not to show any other teachers.'"

Ahmed put the clock in his bag after that, but the alarm went off during English class. He showed his invention to the teacher after class was over. 

"She was like, it looks like a bomb," he said.

"I told her, 'It doesn't look like a bomb to me.'"

The teacher kept the clock and the principal called police. Officers pulled Ahmed out of class, questioned him, handcuffed him and took him to juvenile detention, where his fingerprints and mug shot were taken, he said. 

"It made me feel like I wasn't human. It made me feel like a criminal," he told the Dallas Morning News. 

When the story began circulating on Twitter Tuesday night, many people questioned the reaction of teachers and police to Ahmed's homemade clock, and sympathized with his story. 

Linda Moreno, an attorney representing Ahmed, said the family is considering taking legal action against police after officers interrogated, handcuffed, searched, booked and fingerprinted the teen.

Ahmed is planning on transferring to another school, and according to an Associated Press report, the family is considering legal action against the police.

Ahmed's family began circulating a photo of him, dressed in a NASA T-shirt, being taken away in handcuffs. 

That shirt resonated with many on Twitter. 

In fact, several people at NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory did send Twitter shoutouts and invitations to Ahmed. 

The school's principal and the school district released statements to parents and the media, and those didn't go over too well on Twitter. 

The hashtag #IStandWithAhmed emerged for people who felt the teen had been treated unfairly because of his race, religion and name. 

Ahmed's story went viral thanks to some mentions by celebrities, including Montel Williams and The Roots' Questlove Gomez. 

By mid-Wednesday morning, a Twitter account set up on Ahmed's behalf began acknowledging all of the worldwide attention his story had received. 

And by midday Wednesday, Ahmed's story had crossed the desks of some of the most powerful people in the U.S. 

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