This is supremely outrageous.
On September 14, 2015, 14-year-old Ahmed Mohamed was arrested at MacArthur High School in Irving, Texas for bringing an alleged hoax clock bomb to school. News of the arrest rapidly went viral, resulting in allegations of racial profiling and Islamophobia.
As recounted by Wikipedia, Mohamed had reconstructed an electronic clock in a pencil box and brought it to school to show his teachers. His English teacher thought the clock resembled a bomb, confiscated it and reported the boy to the school’s principal. Local law enforcement was called and Mohamed was questioned by police for an hour and a half. After being taken into custody, handcuffed, and transported to a juvenile detention facility, he was fingerprinted and his photograph was taken. He was then released to his parents. The case was not pursued further by juvenile justice authorities, but Mohamed was suspended from school for three days.
After Obama, other politicians, activists, technology company executives, and media personalities remarked on the incident, Mohamed was invited to the White House and a number of high-profile events related to encouraging youth interest in science and technology. After the incident, the family decided to move to Qatar, accepting a scholarship offered to Mohamed by the Qatar Foundation.
But the media can’t be bothered to find out or report the truth about Ahmed and his clock bomb:
- Ahmed is not a boy genius: He didn’t make the clock, but had merely taken out the innards of a Radio Shack digital clock and installed it in a cigar box.
- Ahmed was deliberately looking for a confrontation: After the first teacher to whom he showed the clock told him to put it in his locker and not show it around, Ahmed continued to show it around until he found a teacher who reacted with the apparently desired response.
- Ahmed was uncooperative with Irving police.
For more details, please see my post “The truth about Ahmed, the Muslim ‘clock boy’“.
Now Muslim “clock boy” is demanding $15 million from the Texan city of Irving and its school district for “psychological trauma” and “permanently scarring” his non-existent “reputation in the global community”.
All the way from the Gulf state of Qatar, Ahmed’s father, Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed, has retained attorney Kelly D. Hollingsworth of the Plainview, Texas law firm Laney & Bollinger.
Kelly (l) and Troy Hollingsworth (photo from MyPlainview.com)
Ahmed wants $5 million from the Irving Independent School District (ISC)
In a letter to Irving ISD legal counsel Tina Patel, dated November 23, 2015, Hollingsworth demands the following for “the unlawful detention, interrogation, arrest, and public mistreatment of Ahmed Mohamed by administrators and teachers of the Irving ISD”:
- $5 million “as compensation for the damages Ahmed suffered at the hands of the Irving ISD and its employees.”
- “A written apology from Irving ISD acknowledging that Ahmed Mohamed never intended to threaten anyone, and that his detention, interrogation, and arrest were wrongful and were made at a point in time when there was no reasonable suspicion to believe that Ahmed had committed a crime or was about to commit any crime.”
Hollingsworth threatens that failure to accede to the above two demands within 60 days from Nov. 23, 2015, will result in “a civil action,” i.e., a lawsuit.
Ahmed wants $10 million from City of Irving
In a letter to Irving city attorney Charles R. Anderson, dated November 23, 2015, Kelly Hollingsworth demands the following for “the detention, interrogation, arrest, and public mistreatment of Ahmed Mohamed by Mayor Beth Van Duyne, Chief of Police Larry Boyd, and numerous other City of Irving officials”:
- $10 million “as compensation for the damages Ahmed suffered at the hands of the City of Irving and its employees.”
- A written apology from Mayor Van Duyne.
- “A written apology from Police Chief Larry Boyd acknowledging that Ahmed Mohamed never intended to threaten anyone, and that his detention, interrogation, and arrest were wrongful.”
Hollingsworth concludes the letter with this threat to the City of Irving: “If you fail to comply with the above demands within sixty days from the date of this letter, you should expect that we will file a civil action,” i.e., a lawsuit.
Here’s Kelly Hollingsworth’s LinkedIn page.
H/t FOTM’s MomOfIV
~Eowyn