The picture at left (from The Daily Mail) is of Ahmed Mohamed in handcuffs after being arrested at his Irving (Texas) school. What was the 14 year-old's crime. He made a digital clock, and brought it to school to show his teacher.The teacher claimed it looked like a bomb and notified the school administration. Administrators called the police. The police arrested him. All three justified their actions by claiming they thought the clock could have been a bomb. They lied.
If they really thought it was a bomb, why didn't they evacuate all the other students from the school. Isn't that what they are supposed to do with any kind of bomb threat? Of course it is -- and if they'd really believed it could be a bomb, they would have evacuated the school.
And now the police chief of Irving finally admits that his officers knew it wasn't a bomb before they arrested Ahmed. Note this interview that MSNBC's Chris Hayes had with Irving Police Chief Larry Boyd:
"Once it’s determined that this is just a clock or just a piece of electronics, why then the arrest and all of that?" the MSNBC host asked Boyd. "That’s very hard for folks to understand."
"I get that. I understand the concern," Boyd acknowledged. "The officers pretty quickly determined that they weren’t investigating an explosive device. What their investigation centered around is the law violation of bringing a device into a facility like that that is intended to create a level of alarm. In other words, a hoax bomb — something that is not really a bomb, but is designed and presented in a way that it creates people to be afraid." "Right, but he never called it a bomb, right?" Hayes returned. "He just kept calling it a clock. I mean, it never came out of his lips, he never did something or started showing it around saying, ‘Look at this bomb I have.’ He said, ‘Look at my clock.’" "There definitely was some confusion and some level of information that didn’t come out immediately," Boyd defended. "With what they had at that time, they made the best decision that they had at that point in time," he continued. So, they knew it wasn't a bomb. They also knew he never claimed it was a bomb. And Ahmed never tried to cause any trouble for the school or the police officers. That means there was NO justifiable reason to arrest the 14 year-old.
So why was he arrested? Was it because he was a muslim? I believe it was. I simply don't believe any white student that brought a digital clock to school would have been arrested -- and as a Texan, this incident both embarrasses and angers me.
The officers making the arrest should be disciplined, and in my opinion, this police chief should be fired for his obvious lack of leadership. Unfortunately, that won't happen -- because the mayor of Irving is well known for her hatred of muslims.
