Their justification is in the linked PDF: "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."
This is another way that governments (those with the monopoly of the use of force) expand their reach.
By putting the precipice of wrongdoing not on what happened but on the reaction of state agents, it becomes extremely difficult to call out bullies like this.
I read that line as more along the lines of yelling "fire" in a movie theater. Clearly there was no intent of causing hysteria with Ahmed's suitcase clock, which I assume is why he was freed. But, clearly, this shouldn't have gone as far as it did.
So I found a five year old photo of mine on Flickr - I'm glad I wasn't a muslim schoolkid in Texas when I wrote that second paragraph in the Flickr description:
(Also now waiting for the first reports of a muslim being convicted of a "bomb hoax" for carrying a pepper grinder, on the grounds that it "cause a sneeze reaction in a law enforcement officer"...)
I think the point here is or ought to be that there are a lot of things that are completely normal that might be mistaken for a bomb by the ignorant or the uneducated. And no, that's not an excuse for the Irving ISD or Irving PD peoples' actions either since we expect them to be neither ignorant nor uneducated.
@fnordfnordfnord To my knowledge, no one has asserted this was ever a bomb. This is all about the zero-tolerance policy public schools appear to be applying to situations like this and others (see: gun shaped pop-tart). Hopefully situations like this give reason to begin discussions about rethinking the way we treat children in an environment where this kind of activity should be encouraged, not punished.
I don't fault them for this, though I have no idea if it's true. This was stated because of the huge media firestorm and the belief that this wouldn't have happened to a Bob Jones.
Had this happened to a Bob Jones, there would not have been people saying that this only happened because he was Christian, and the sentence above would not have been in the PD statement.
Note how they impugn his character, implying he was and is less than candid. He couldn't win: either he implicates himself, justifying their actions, or they call him a liar, excusing their idiocy.
Police are great believers in the value of lawyerless interrogation. Therefore, they take every chance they get to attempt to convince the public of the wisdom of talking to cops.
The small metallic type suitcase/box may have been a perfect container
1) To cram in all the ugly looking wires inside while the outer appearance of the product looks polished
2) Nice platform to tether the circuit boards etc to keep them in place
3) Doubles up as a carry box to move around his project and display/show to friends , teachers etc
On the flip side
1) There is subtle difference between timers vs clocks
2) Doesn't look anything like a traditional clock, but more like a James Bondish suitcase/gadget, especially if I just saw the picture of the device alone with no other context given to me.
Having said that, , I am in no way defending the action of police or the school.
What is needed was context, ability to do minimum analysis and common sense. And the teachers, school administration, police had plenty of that. It could have been a simple matter of explaining to the kid , while his zeal is appreciated, to notify his teachers in advance in future, to make sure his projects don't disturb the class, and to encourage more such robotic/electronic projects for science fairs etc (appropriate time and place for everything)
Also unfortunately, due to the current security song and dance every where, kids (and adults too) have to be taught about being sensitive to fear and perceptions of others timing/location/context . Even kids may have to be explained to be sensitive to such things.
May be all or some involved may be bigoted towards the muslim community as the media or comments suggest and that may have played a role in the escalation.
And may be some(or all) weren't. But generally concerned about past incidents related to school environments and violence in schools (Shootings etc). Some of these were perpetrated by fellow students, which can't be discounted in playing into the fears of those involved in this incident.
We can't say for sure , religion/color was the sole motivation. Some past violent incidents were perpetrated by white kids/persons. So if it were a white kid in this situation, can we absolutely discount 100% that similar amount of concern might have not been triggered in the class teacher's mind, or the administration or police.
The point is, reasonable benefit of doubt can be given to the teacher, admin, police for going into a heightened/alert mode.
But what cannot be justified is the failure in subsequent analysis and diffusion of the tension at every level. The teacher could have clarified the intention, and diffused the tension and not escalated it after establishing facts (and the awareness of the enthusiasm and character of a kid of their own class that they should be familiar with). Or the next level, school security/admin could have diffused and de-escalated the situation. Or the police could have done that.
But, no, escalation seems to be a one way process for authority/admin/police these days. What happened to 'peace keeping' part of their job ?
To be fair (and I slightly hate myself for speaking up in their defence) the cops were claiming "bomb hoax", not "bomb".
Of course the police are also claiming "not racially motivated policing", so as we gauge their level of truthfullness we should keep both those facts in mind...
Last Insaw about an hour ago, he is still suspended through Thursday (tomorrow). Is this still true? I don't understand why if the charges were dropped...
The school system and the court system are two different systems. It's possible to be suspended without being arrested. It's possible to be arrested without being suspended.
Honestly, I'm not worried for Ahmed at all, in 15 years he will be in much better shape compared to 99% of the population. I'm just concerned about all the other kids given those teacher and school admins.
You're wrong, I'm sorry to say. The other kids will be just fine. He will be the one who will remember this and it could affect his life in ways that we can't say yet.
I don't think the parent was commenting on how the other students would be more affected by this incident, but will affected simply by attending a school with horrible administration. He, on the other hand, has been invited to places like Facebook by Zuckerberg himself because of this incident. Not the worst outcome.
I'm glad Ahmed got all the support and encouragement he did but not one person of note/power, including Obama and Hillary Clinton (who offered their cute tweets) have talked of punishing, penalizing, or in the very least reprimanding the officers and teachers who put him through this. How is that?
It's criminal to handcuff and interrogate a 14-yr old in front of his entire class and school when they found nothing to implicate him. It's an unconscionable act. These people are not only stupid (look at that 'suspicious' device), they are abusing power with no repercussions.
"The student was handcuffed for his safety and for the safety of the officers". Are they out of their mind?
"Officer safety" is statutory language that supports a whole host of discretionary powers, from handcuffing to shooting dead.
It's criminal to handcuff and interrogate a 14-yr old in front of his entire class and school when they found nothing to implicate him.
It maybe should be, but isn't. However, what is illegal is questioning him without his parents or a lawyer present, which he requested multiple times to no effect.
But shouldn't they be prosecuted for questioning him without parental consent or presence, at least?
No, because Civil Rights violations are generally established through civil suits, not criminal. More specifically, 42 USC 1983 is civil, 18 USC 242 is criminal. There is a telltale loophole in the criminal statute, "willfully," that provides wiggle room for the violator to play dumb.
>I'm glad Ahmed got all the support and encouragement he did but not one person of note/power, including Obama and Hillary Clinton (who offered their cute tweets) have talked of punishing, penalizing, or in the very least reprimanding the officers and teachers who put him through this. How is that?
Maybe because the world has bigger problems than one police officer and a teacher acting out of line. It's a story the internet loves and perpetuates but frankly absolutely unimportant.
By that measure, unless someone dies, nothing is important. Couldn't you conceive of a situation where he (let's say out of panic) acts weird and an officer shoots him dead on suspicion of a suitcase containing a bomb? Would that make it important enough?
Funny you should put it like that. Now that actual pictures of the "digital clock" are available, that is first time I have seen a clock built into a metal suitcase that, golly gee, somewhat resembles a bomb.
Ya'll are being absurd. That kid new what he was doing, I did stupid shit like that when I his age...worse in fact, these days I would have made national headlines if I had been caught. So I know what I am talking about here.
He may be be a smart boy, but you put that briefcase in any Hollywood movie or video game and they would call it a bomb. If he was really building a clock it would at least somewhat really resemble a clock.
Bear in mind, I am a strong opponent of the rising police state and slow creep of tyranny that I hope is becoming obvious to even the more ignorant sections of the populace. But this...come on guys, call a spade a spade.
Pssst: You do not live in a Hollywood movie or video game.
Here in the real world, he biggest recent terrorist incident in the US, the Boston Marathon bombing, used a backpack. But nobody is suggesting that kids be arrested for bringing backpacks to school.
And yes, the kid knew what he was doing: bringing in one of his hobby projects to show his teachers. Which is exactly what we want students to do. The problem is that the teachers didn't know what they were doing.
I was skeptical until i saw the picture. If there was no other context it looks pretty suspicious. If you left this thing unattended at bus stop you bet there would be a bomb squad on it.
But now that we are all familiar with pencil box clocks, one could easily mimic this design for a real bomb. A block of c4 would work nicely as the transformer core.
It does not "look pretty suspicious". You suspect it. Suspicion is a process that happens inside your head, and is not intrinsic to the object.
We can agree that the device would look unfamiliar to many. But that people treat unfamiliar things as scary is up to them.
As I mentioned elsewhere, the biggest recent bombing in the US left a backpack behind. Others have used briefcases, trucks, and even a Christmas present:
So if you are serious about security, then you should call the bomb squad for ordinary objects left behind at bus stops.
Of course, nobody getting the vapors about this incident is serious about security. If they were, they would not have carried Ahmed's device around the school building. If they thought it was a bomb, they would have stopped touching the device, evacuated the area, and called the bomb squad.
The actual problem here is not Ahmed's clock. It is teachers and administrators who think their irrational fears are far more important that kids' educations.
I mean, you're right that if you left it unattended at a bus stop the bomb squad would show up. But the same is true of a cardboard box or a backpack. Nearly anything looks suspicious if you leave it sitting around. That's not a reasonable criteria for "resembles a bomb," especially when it wasn't left sitting around.
In China, when a large group of people all start successfully breaking the law the same way (and getting away with it) the people get paranoid and round them all up and shoot them.
This has happened several times in the past century, and it still occurs.
They do this because in the past, these kinds of criminal groups have taken control of China.
People like you that discredit history and also geography when you think about politics, nationalism and race, are a true danger to society.
This unfortunate event is a microcosm of the society (in the US) we live in:
- Most people love to be PC and no one has the cajones to have a frank conversation about race issues as adults (especially in the red states).
- A lot of people love to spew out personal anecdotes and pass them off as the truth and anything opposing to that POV as an exception to their anecdotal belief
- The fact that none of them have apologized (at this point in time, even if they issue one, it's going to be fake) shows the disdain and bigotry against minorities, generally speaking
Apparently there is such a law as anti-hoax bomb so it would be hard to prosecute officers. Another reason it's hard to prosecute bad cops is the same reason it's hard to fire bad teachers: powerful unions, which by the way Obama and Hillary support. These unions don't care about safety or education (in case of teachers unions), they only care about protecting officers and teachers jobs, no matter how bad or criminal they can act.
The design of the clock is absurd for a "random project". If the kid walks into an airport with that, its basically like yelling fire in a movie theatre. its not freedom of speech, even tho its speech. If this is a politicised stunt (which it appears to be), same issues at play. This whole insident basically looks like a johnny knonxville stunt form Jackass (the mtv show). If its true that his father is a former presidential candidate from an african country (ie, apparenely delusions of grandeur -- hhttps://www.vox.com/2015/9/16/9339063/ahmed-mohamed-elhassan) it further undermines this entire narrative of the media frenzy.
Note my description from five years ago shows somewhat more considered-but-not-carried-out intent than this kid...
I think you are 100% wrong. People who assume anything vaguely electronic that they don't understand must be "terrorism" are the problem here, not smart kids building things out of what they have at hand with whatever aesthetic they like. In my opinion, it's the school and the cops who were yelling "fire" in this movie theatre.
go try joking about explosives in security line at the airport, or at the white-house, or the local federal courthouse. Its not the joke you are getting (going to be) arrested for, its not the absurdity, its not the freedom of speech you are exercising. Its also not racist or whatever...it is just not the context for jokes.
Second,
The <carrier-device> for the "timepiece" is straight out of a B movie. see, eg
First - he never mentioned, joked, or claimed anything about explosives (but the cops carefully framed that as him "not being forthcoming"). The only people talking about explosives were the "adults".
Second - when did it become "OK" to handcuff and question children without lawyers based on what b-grade movie makers choose to use as stereotypes?
(Sorry you're getting downvoted so hard - I disagree but would rather discuss and understand your position than downvote you to oblivion...)
Sure - Woz built a metronome - then realised it looked a bit like part of a bomb, and intentionally modified it to look like bomb, then hid it in a locker and purposely rigged it up to tick faster in the expectation that it'd be found.
That's a _lot_ further down the path of "intent to create a bomb hoax" than "building a clock".
(And personally, I'm of the opinion that putting a schoolkid in jail for what Woz did was ignorantly overreacting... Quite possibly because I was that same kind of schoolkid who'd make that same silly decision. Hell look at my Flickr photo's comment - I thought it would be hilarious to do that at 43 years old, it's just experience and perspective that stopped me building exactly what Woz made...)
point being that questioning a kid and releasing him are not that big a deall. perp walk is OTT. but stuff happens...look at woz...people do dumb shit like that...same thing as sarcasm in security theatre at the airport...justic is working OK when people get pulled aside...contrast to the way the police publicly execute black people for holding a toy or a telephone...those cases seem alot more egregious in many ways. I don't mind playing devil's advocate here...i think some discussion is warranted. no worries.
> point being that questioning a kid and releasing him are not that big a deall
Depriving someone of their liberty, even for a few hours, is a big deal. That's why compensation for wrongful arrest runs to $5,000 - $10,000 per hour.
this hinges on good faith and ignorance of the law. you can legitimately arrest suspects under the auspices of 'suspiscion' of a crime (eg, murder). Whereas false arrest is an arrest contary to known fact.
In cases of bomb threats and security breaches, qualified immunity is going to provide significant leeway when dealing with IEDs. Since most high-schools have strict anti-weapons rules, you can get arrested for a swiss army knife. Again, this is not the same thing as an apologia for a perp walk of a 14 year old. But if you want to see a "false arrest" look at what happened to the Blake last week in NYC. That was an unreasonable takedown of a private citizen with no effort made to establish identity; and a violent arrest for a non-fleeing suspect in a non-violent crime, etc.
In this case you are dealing with an "IED" vs an "Improvised Timekeeping Device", and since the former often includes the latter as a component part, its not completely baseless. This is why you cannot fly with liquid water on an airplane--the security forces cannot distinguish (on-sight) "legitimate water" in a clear bottle from several chemicals (aslo clear) than can be combined into an explosive IED that will puncture a pressure hull of an airliner. If you insist on taking your water through security you will get it removed or be arrested.
Considering this[0] is what an actual bomb looks like, practically every student at every school could be carrying a bomb.
The teacher he showed the clock to in the morning is kicking himself for not telling the kid to leave it with him and pick it up at the end of the day. He knew what the administration/other teachers would think if they saw it.
What if it was a bomb. Or the timer for a bomb that was already planted? And the news today was "14 year old brings bomb to school, teachers save day"?
The situation was not handled well at all by any of the adults involved. But schools are a scary place. You've got a building with a generation of other people's children in it. And some times people do bad things in those buildings.
Someone should have looked at that clock and said "yeah, this is a clock. No big deal. It doesn't even look like a real bomb, but if it kind of looks like a TV Bomb, maybe don't bring it to school next time." and then everyone goes on their merry way.
Just a note--an IED in a backpack is what IED looks like...that's the whole point of an ied--strategic ambiquity, right? Your larger point is correct, tho, that adults should have sacked up and handled this thing immediately. Common sense being 20/20 in hindsight.
Well, just writing "BOMB" on a card board, and boarding a plane with it, would be enough to get you arrested in the USA; we've seen examples close enough.
Federalism means that the federal government doesn't have much power at the state or lower levels unless there are constitutional issues involved (you could argue 14th amendment but it's a stretch). If Obama tried to get the teacher fired it would be a massive abuse of power.
United States Code 18-242 makes it a federal crime (a felony if armed) to violate a citizens constitutional rights under color of law. There are several rights that I think were violated here, or appear to have been enough to make it indictable and possibly merit prosecution.
> These people are not only stupid (look at that 'suspicious' device), they are abusing power with no repercussions.
That's the part that bothers me the most - that they were too stupid to know what they were looking at. He was proud of his invention and wanted to show it off.
I understand and agree with your outrage. But isn't the attention and humiliation they are receiving enough? Elevating the dialogue was the graceful thing to do.
Taking high road is best. The fear these authority had comes from ignorance. And the HNer types can help change that. Geeks can do a better job of presenting technology to normals in a way that is palpable.
I really really hope he wins a multi-million dollar lawsuit for wrongful arrest and turns it into a billion dollar company that makes precision timepieces.
Poor kid has been humiliated and called a genius inventor on same day, imagine the pressure he'll get to live up to this expectation as a future engineer/scientist.
The real problem is that the system that bubbled up this exceptional and notable instance of idiocy has just been churning away day in, day out for years and decades and affects a tremendous number of people's lives. Schools that are just industrialized baby-sitting facilities where kids are subjected to so much useless busy work it's a wonder that any enthusiasm for knowledge remains. And school and legal systems which treat non-white kids as terrorists or gangsters until proven innocent. Zero-tolerance, zero-compassion, zero-humanity, zero-education. It's shocking that the system isn't even more broken than it is given how terrible so many of the components are.
It's a little ridiculous thinking that institutions supposedly founded to increase intelligence insist on being governed by rules demanding it's absence.
This is so stupid. This is as much a bomb as a disassembled alarm clock is. Everyone involved should be fired, from the school through the police department. Words cannot describe how terrible this situation is.
This should have included some introspection on the part of the school and/or police force involved. Instead they are digging in behind the narrative that their fear was reasonable and their reaction was justifiable, and that Ahmed somehow withheld information that would have changed their mind at some point.
This is classic school faculty behavior: do it our way or else. He could have 'played ball' and explained in detail the project he worked on, but he didn't. He shouldn't have to either. They can expel him or send him home, but they went further, to teach him a lesson for being 'smart'.
It's clear they didn't fear the device. As others have pointed out, the school wasn't evacuated. They knew it wasn't a bomb.
What's really shitty about this isn't that the school or police overreacted at first. It isn't that this somehow affects Islamic-American relations or American-Muslim citizens. It isn't even that this may have discouraged Ahmed from future creativity. What's so concerning about this story is that if it wasn't picked up by the news, a defenseless 14-year-old would have a criminal record for bringing a personal project to school.
Situations like this make me think of all the similar incidents that never got picked up by the news because some terrorist was shot or the stock market dipped and the story was no longer important enough to report.
It seems to me that Ahmed's story is turning out to be this perfect intersection of zero-tolerance, racism, technological illiteracy, and police overreaction. It's an entire decade of nonsense in a tidy little package.
That's just crazy talk just like calling a bigot a crazy person. Once again the world has failed inspect the relationship two nations have with each other appropriately.
There's nothing wrong with what Texas did by arresting this muslim. He could have been doing it all for his father and for the arab spring, especially considering the intelligence they are showing and the outcry from the liberal community.
If you move to Saudi Arabia you have to stick to the bigger city if you have friction with them, and his family should have known to do that. That's the basics of life, and it will not change. Stop targeting Texas.
A ticking device that is not supposed to be brought to other classes(he was notified by his science teacher), and is closed up with some string so you can not see what's inside, and by a 14 year old Muslim student, and suddenly it starts to tick during a class. If I'm the teacher I will call the cops too. Yes I know I'm politically incorrect here, and will get down votes for this, but if I'm the teacher I will do the same, though I do agree the cops can be much nicer to handle this.
On the other hand, I frequently found to speak your true thoughts here at HN, it _scares_ me to some extent, because different thoughts here will immediately be punished by down votes, such as the one above. Maybe it's time to close my HN account all together.
Looks like you missed the point entirely. Taking precautions about the device is understandable, if a bit silly -- and if they had left it at that, this would be nothing more than a "not The Onion" story to laugh at. What happened after (the arrest and suspension) is outrageous.
It's no different than a family of archers moving from Italy to France in the 1500s.
Eventually when they have the upper hand, they'll take territory, just like we've seen throughout human history and like what just happened in eastern Ukraine.
A kid from a family that smart should respect christians and whites enough to know to stay in a big city as an outsider.
Looking at the photo of the device I certainly can't see how that looks even remotely like a bomb. Nothing resembling an explosive payload or a detonator in there.
"Attached is a picture of the device that shows it was suspicious in nature."
Nope, it shows no such thing - I see bare electronics, that's all. I really do think that the idea that that is intrinsically "suspicious" needs to be challenged, or better yet ridiculed.
123 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 211 ms ] thread"Attached is a picture of the device that shows it was suspicious in nature."
I bet they don't even realize they just sound like idiots.
I think we're past that. We're in cover-your-ass territory at the moment.
1. Evacuated the school 2. Called the bomb squad
By putting the precipice of wrongdoing not on what happened but on the reaction of state agents, it becomes extremely difficult to call out bullies like this.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/bigiain/5162711688/
(Also now waiting for the first reports of a muslim being convicted of a "bomb hoax" for carrying a pepper grinder, on the grounds that it "cause a sneeze reaction in a law enforcement officer"...)
I think in Texas that'd make me suspicious - and I think that's _insane_.
"I'm impressed - I didn't realise Ahmed had built a clock with a functional alarm."
Wait, if this was an objective reaction having only to do with the nature of the device, then why is the student's religion even mentioned?
Had this happened to a Bob Jones, there would not have been people saying that this only happened because he was Christian, and the sentence above would not have been in the PD statement.
it looks like maybe they suspected he wanted it to look like a bomb. it does kind of look like a bomb.
of course the cops totally overrreacted.
he's either a brilliant troll (the NASA shirt is perfect), or a nerdy kid with little social awareness. either way, bravo.
i think the cops figured, he made it to look like a bomb and was trying to use it for a bomb threat.
i think they overracted and probably violated the law by questioning him without his lawyer present - they should go to jail.
it's understandable why they did what they did, but they should be punished.
What did they expect him to say? It WAS only a clock. There were no other details regarding its nature or use.
1) To cram in all the ugly looking wires inside while the outer appearance of the product looks polished 2) Nice platform to tether the circuit boards etc to keep them in place 3) Doubles up as a carry box to move around his project and display/show to friends , teachers etc
On the flip side
1) There is subtle difference between timers vs clocks 2) Doesn't look anything like a traditional clock, but more like a James Bondish suitcase/gadget, especially if I just saw the picture of the device alone with no other context given to me.
Having said that, , I am in no way defending the action of police or the school.
What is needed was context, ability to do minimum analysis and common sense. And the teachers, school administration, police had plenty of that. It could have been a simple matter of explaining to the kid , while his zeal is appreciated, to notify his teachers in advance in future, to make sure his projects don't disturb the class, and to encourage more such robotic/electronic projects for science fairs etc (appropriate time and place for everything)
Also unfortunately, due to the current security song and dance every where, kids (and adults too) have to be taught about being sensitive to fear and perceptions of others timing/location/context . Even kids may have to be explained to be sensitive to such things.
May be all or some involved may be bigoted towards the muslim community as the media or comments suggest and that may have played a role in the escalation.
And may be some(or all) weren't. But generally concerned about past incidents related to school environments and violence in schools (Shootings etc). Some of these were perpetrated by fellow students, which can't be discounted in playing into the fears of those involved in this incident.
We can't say for sure , religion/color was the sole motivation. Some past violent incidents were perpetrated by white kids/persons. So if it were a white kid in this situation, can we absolutely discount 100% that similar amount of concern might have not been triggered in the class teacher's mind, or the administration or police.
The point is, reasonable benefit of doubt can be given to the teacher, admin, police for going into a heightened/alert mode.
But what cannot be justified is the failure in subsequent analysis and diffusion of the tension at every level. The teacher could have clarified the intention, and diffused the tension and not escalated it after establishing facts (and the awareness of the enthusiasm and character of a kid of their own class that they should be familiar with). Or the next level, school security/admin could have diffused and de-escalated the situation. Or the police could have done that.
But, no, escalation seems to be a one way process for authority/admin/police these days. What happened to 'peace keeping' part of their job ?
I see this post as a thoughtful plea for context and consideration. What am I missing?
The police were not fearful enough to evacuate the school, yet made the claim that this seemed to be a bomb.
Explaining their actions without that context is a bit trite.
Of course the police are also claiming "not racially motivated policing", so as we gauge their level of truthfullness we should keep both those facts in mind...
The kid did nothing wrong. The supposed "adults" and "authorities" are 100% at fault here.
Ah so now Ahmed will get to see the worst of the worst on a different end of the spectrum.
I certainly hope so, anyway.
It's criminal to handcuff and interrogate a 14-yr old in front of his entire class and school when they found nothing to implicate him. It's an unconscionable act. These people are not only stupid (look at that 'suspicious' device), they are abusing power with no repercussions.
"The student was handcuffed for his safety and for the safety of the officers". Are they out of their mind?
It's criminal to handcuff and interrogate a 14-yr old in front of his entire class and school when they found nothing to implicate him.
It maybe should be, but isn't. However, what is illegal is questioning him without his parents or a lawyer present, which he requested multiple times to no effect.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/16/police-viol...
But shouldn't they be prosecuted for questioning him without parental consent or presence, at least?
No, because Civil Rights violations are generally established through civil suits, not criminal. More specifically, 42 USC 1983 is civil, 18 USC 242 is criminal. There is a telltale loophole in the criminal statute, "willfully," that provides wiggle room for the violator to play dumb.
Maybe because the world has bigger problems than one police officer and a teacher acting out of line. It's a story the internet loves and perpetuates but frankly absolutely unimportant.
Ya'll are being absurd. That kid new what he was doing, I did stupid shit like that when I his age...worse in fact, these days I would have made national headlines if I had been caught. So I know what I am talking about here.
He may be be a smart boy, but you put that briefcase in any Hollywood movie or video game and they would call it a bomb. If he was really building a clock it would at least somewhat really resemble a clock.
Bear in mind, I am a strong opponent of the rising police state and slow creep of tyranny that I hope is becoming obvious to even the more ignorant sections of the populace. But this...come on guys, call a spade a spade.
Here in the real world, he biggest recent terrorist incident in the US, the Boston Marathon bombing, used a backpack. But nobody is suggesting that kids be arrested for bringing backpacks to school.
And yes, the kid knew what he was doing: bringing in one of his hobby projects to show his teachers. Which is exactly what we want students to do. The problem is that the teachers didn't know what they were doing.
Pencil case, not a suitcase. When I was a kid, I used whatever case I could come up with for my projects. Cigar boxes, whatever.
I understand that Altoids tins are quite popular with the young tinkerers of today.
But now that we are all familiar with pencil box clocks, one could easily mimic this design for a real bomb. A block of c4 would work nicely as the transformer core.
We can agree that the device would look unfamiliar to many. But that people treat unfamiliar things as scary is up to them.
As I mentioned elsewhere, the biggest recent bombing in the US left a backpack behind. Others have used briefcases, trucks, and even a Christmas present:
http://townhall.com/columnists/johnhawkins/2013/04/16/the-10...
So if you are serious about security, then you should call the bomb squad for ordinary objects left behind at bus stops.
Of course, nobody getting the vapors about this incident is serious about security. If they were, they would not have carried Ahmed's device around the school building. If they thought it was a bomb, they would have stopped touching the device, evacuated the area, and called the bomb squad.
The actual problem here is not Ahmed's clock. It is teachers and administrators who think their irrational fears are far more important that kids' educations.
I mean, you're right that if you left it unattended at a bus stop the bomb squad would show up. But the same is true of a cardboard box or a backpack. Nearly anything looks suspicious if you leave it sitting around. That's not a reasonable criteria for "resembles a bomb," especially when it wasn't left sitting around.
This has happened several times in the past century, and it still occurs.
They do this because in the past, these kinds of criminal groups have taken control of China.
People like you that discredit history and also geography when you think about politics, nationalism and race, are a true danger to society.
- Most people love to be PC and no one has the cajones to have a frank conversation about race issues as adults (especially in the red states).
- A lot of people love to spew out personal anecdotes and pass them off as the truth and anything opposing to that POV as an exception to their anecdotal belief
- The fact that none of them have apologized (at this point in time, even if they issue one, it's going to be fake) shows the disdain and bigotry against minorities, generally speaking
Should I be convicted of a "bomb hoax" for this? https://www.flickr.com/photos/bigiain/5162711688/
Note my description from five years ago shows somewhat more considered-but-not-carried-out intent than this kid...
I think you are 100% wrong. People who assume anything vaguely electronic that they don't understand must be "terrorism" are the problem here, not smart kids building things out of what they have at hand with whatever aesthetic they like. In my opinion, it's the school and the cops who were yelling "fire" in this movie theatre.
And this isn't the first time "the authorities" have go this just as badly wrong: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Boston_bomb_scare https://boingboing.net/2007/09/21/mit-student-arrested.html
go try joking about explosives in security line at the airport, or at the white-house, or the local federal courthouse. Its not the joke you are getting (going to be) arrested for, its not the absurdity, its not the freedom of speech you are exercising. Its also not racist or whatever...it is just not the context for jokes.
Second,
The <carrier-device> for the "timepiece" is straight out of a B movie. see, eg
https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+a+gun+briefcase+look...
https://www.google.com/search?q=what+does+a+bomb+in+a+breifc...
Second - when did it become "OK" to handcuff and question children without lawyers based on what b-grade movie makers choose to use as stereotypes?
(Sorry you're getting downvoted so hard - I disagree but would rather discuss and understand your position than downvote you to oblivion...)
That's a _lot_ further down the path of "intent to create a bomb hoax" than "building a clock".
(And personally, I'm of the opinion that putting a schoolkid in jail for what Woz did was ignorantly overreacting... Quite possibly because I was that same kind of schoolkid who'd make that same silly decision. Hell look at my Flickr photo's comment - I thought it would be hilarious to do that at 43 years old, it's just experience and perspective that stopped me building exactly what Woz made...)
Depriving someone of their liberty, even for a few hours, is a big deal. That's why compensation for wrongful arrest runs to $5,000 - $10,000 per hour.
In cases of bomb threats and security breaches, qualified immunity is going to provide significant leeway when dealing with IEDs. Since most high-schools have strict anti-weapons rules, you can get arrested for a swiss army knife. Again, this is not the same thing as an apologia for a perp walk of a 14 year old. But if you want to see a "false arrest" look at what happened to the Blake last week in NYC. That was an unreasonable takedown of a private citizen with no effort made to establish identity; and a violent arrest for a non-fleeing suspect in a non-violent crime, etc.
In this case you are dealing with an "IED" vs an "Improvised Timekeeping Device", and since the former often includes the latter as a component part, its not completely baseless. This is why you cannot fly with liquid water on an airplane--the security forces cannot distinguish (on-sight) "legitimate water" in a clear bottle from several chemicals (aslo clear) than can be combined into an explosive IED that will puncture a pressure hull of an airliner. If you insist on taking your water through security you will get it removed or be arrested.
The teacher he showed the clock to in the morning is kicking himself for not telling the kid to leave it with him and pick it up at the end of the day. He knew what the administration/other teachers would think if they saw it.
What if it was a bomb. Or the timer for a bomb that was already planted? And the news today was "14 year old brings bomb to school, teachers save day"?
The situation was not handled well at all by any of the adults involved. But schools are a scary place. You've got a building with a generation of other people's children in it. And some times people do bad things in those buildings.
Someone should have looked at that clock and said "yeah, this is a clock. No big deal. It doesn't even look like a real bomb, but if it kind of looks like a TV Bomb, maybe don't bring it to school next time." and then everyone goes on their merry way.
Unfortunately, adult ego got involved.
[0] http://www.oddthingsconsidered.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/0...
That's the part that bothers me the most - that they were too stupid to know what they were looking at. He was proud of his invention and wanted to show it off.
Lookup Dr Umar Johnson
In large part because that is precisely what it is!
Please. Suspicious if you've never seen electronics outside of a case, perhaps.
Although the police really have no excuse not to know what a bomb does and doesn't look like.
This is classic school faculty behavior: do it our way or else. He could have 'played ball' and explained in detail the project he worked on, but he didn't. He shouldn't have to either. They can expel him or send him home, but they went further, to teach him a lesson for being 'smart'.
It's clear they didn't fear the device. As others have pointed out, the school wasn't evacuated. They knew it wasn't a bomb.
Good to know he didn't make an alarm clock.
Situations like this make me think of all the similar incidents that never got picked up by the news because some terrorist was shot or the stock market dipped and the story was no longer important enough to report.
-It's in an ethnic christian holdout of the earth
-The kid is above average, and the device looks like he's been dreaming of a suitcase nuke
People should respect the patriarchy and the nations of the Earth. This family should live in the larger city in Texas, if anywhere.
edit: You don't respect how the world and culture and sanity works or how many people are on it if you're opposed to this way of thinking.
There's nothing wrong with what Texas did by arresting this muslim. He could have been doing it all for his father and for the arab spring, especially considering the intelligence they are showing and the outcry from the liberal community.
If you move to Saudi Arabia you have to stick to the bigger city if you have friction with them, and his family should have known to do that. That's the basics of life, and it will not change. Stop targeting Texas.
On the other hand, I frequently found to speak your true thoughts here at HN, it _scares_ me to some extent, because different thoughts here will immediately be punished by down votes, such as the one above. Maybe it's time to close my HN account all together.
Eventually when they have the upper hand, they'll take territory, just like we've seen throughout human history and like what just happened in eastern Ukraine.
A kid from a family that smart should respect christians and whites enough to know to stay in a big city as an outsider.
Nope, it shows no such thing - I see bare electronics, that's all. I really do think that the idea that that is intrinsically "suspicious" needs to be challenged, or better yet ridiculed.