I, for one, would be happy if katliamom got to handle it.
I would also be happy with fewer ad hominem remarks and less political ranting.
Did the teacher really know what it was? Did that teacher take the time to inspect each part? And as Kevin Davis noted what is in the little white bag in the lower right corner of the briefcase and why is is there? Serves no obvious electronic purpose. Was it supposed to provoke further by looking like some sort of explosive powder?
The handcuffing of the boy is in my mind over the top. But minimizing this situation is a very dangerous thing to do.
While we can argue whether or not this is an intelligent, inquisitive kid vs. a smart kid trying to invite scrutiny and outrage, I don’t get why he is now being treated as some kind of hero. What did he do that was heroic?
Interesting how this story is evolving. Wonder if people would have jumped to his defense if this kid had been the quiet white teenager, who always kept to himself. I also wonder if hearing the details that it was a countdown clock, put in a case and set to go off in the middle of English class, with no specific engineering feat required to put it together, would have changed people’s minds. Or that he knew it appeared threatening, and his crazy dad encouraged him to bring it. That is, if the latest details are correct. Who knows.
But sticking with the original story fits the narrative that many people prefer. Stupid Texans, fear of Islam, overreacting police officers, harassing a brilliant young Muslim inventor. I wonder, if the details get even worse, if Zuckerberg, Obama, and MIT are going to drop their interest in him.
I am not sure that the smaller size makes any difference. Does it look anything like a clock to me? No. If he was trying to make an alarm clock why conceal it and make it look like something else?
“OK. We can call it what it is: a deconstructed clock in a suitcase with an LED countdown. So what? It’s still… a form of a clock. The teacher knew it was a form of a clock. The police knew it was a form of a clock. No one thought it was a bomb. So why the hoopla with the interrogation, the handcuffs? The kid did a dumb thing, but he’s a kid. OTOH, the adults here did lots of dumb things, and they should know better.”
If someone brings an improvised item that looks like a bomb to school, to cause fear…I’m pretty sure that is illegal. If you call in a bomb threat, even though there’s not really a bomb, yep, that’s illegal too. You can go to jail for that.
“While we can argue whether or not this is an intelligent, inquisitive kid vs. a smart kid trying to invite scrutiny and outrage, I don’t get why he is now being treated as some kind of hero. What did he do that was heroic?”
He’s fighting the system, ma’am! Muslims should be entitled to bring things that look like weapons anywhere they want, even school, and if people are fearful then they are just ignorant and Islamophobic. He’s standing up for all Muslims across the US, for their right to carry items that look like bombs, without any further scrutiny. He’s a hero, to all Muslim fake bomb makers everywhere!
If you read the whole thread, @zobroward you would have read my first comment in this discussion – before I knew the details of this story – that expressed initial sympathy for the teachers and administration.
Living in Colorado, where lots of kids have died in school-related shootings, and having friends who are teachers and administrators, I know the pressures that school authorities are under when it comes to the potential of violence.
Problem here is – there was no potential of violence and all the adults knew it. I’ll repeat. ALL THE ADULTS KNEW THERE WAS NO POTENTIAL OF VIOLENCE in this device. Yet a kid still ended up handcuffed and interrogated for an hour and a half. Why? Because a lot of adults in this case chose to act like dumb***es and not adults.
But would you agree then @katliamom that he should not have brought such a device to school?
It looks less like a weapon than does a potato.
“Problem here is – there was no potential of violence and all the adults knew it. I’ll repeat. ALL THE ADULTS KNEW THERE WAS NO POTENTIAL OF VIOLENCE in this device. Yet a kid still ended up handcuffed and interrogated for an hour and a half. Why? Because a lot of adults in this case chose to act like dumb***es and not adults.”
If they thought that he was attempting to bring something that looked like a bomb, in order to make people feel threatened, do you understand why he was treated like an adult? I’m not sure why that would make the adults stupid. Just because something isn’t actually a bomb, doesn’t mean that then, everything is okay.
Perhaps they are trying to set an example. Kids are funny, let them get away with something once and they will guaranteed do it again. So with something as serious as this, it is comprehensible to me that someone with authority in law enforcement said “we need to come down hard here to let it be known this will not be tolerated.”
And of course in the end no charges will be filed against him.
It does look like a clock. He always said it was a clock.
His 1st period teacher thought it looked like a clock.
Am becoming convinced the real scary thing for many isn’t what the project looked like (I.e. A Clock) but what the kid’s last name looked like.
50n40w that looks like a clock to you? would you try and carry that “clock” threw security in a court house, federal building, airport etc? you think that would go ok?
@zobroward, Interesting article. That and HarvestMoon1’s point that it was a countdown clock do make it look suspicious. Why would anyone bring a countdown clock to school? Doesn’t it make it look like a bomb detonator? That there’s was no explosives attached to the detonator is only a minor comfort.
I had to give it to him when he brought up the tax previlieges of carried interest.
Ac powered with a battery backup. If I was designing a clock, I’d make some alarm when the backup got low (and I’d want a capacitor to preserve time while the backup got swapped, but I’m an engineer of embedded systems, so what do I know.
That’s Occam’s version of why it beeped.
“And of course in the end no charges will be filed against him”
I don’t know about that. It depends upon how this story plays out. Let me know if I got it right. This story started out as a genius teenage inventor created his own clock, and proudly brought it to school to show it off to his teachers. Somehow it accidentally went off in English class, so he had to show his teacher, who freaked out and called the police. Now the story supposedly has evolved to say that he just threw a couple of purchased parts together in 20 minutes the night prior. Knew it looked threatening, was encouraged to bring it to school by his crazy dad, perhaps set it to go off during class, purposefully. And by the way, it’s a countdown clock, in a case, with a visible countdown on the exterior of the case, not a clock in the way people were considering—to tell time.
If the latter story is accurate (and who knows, these things are always evolving), and he built it and brought it, to make people think it was a bomb—there may very well be charges filed. The press always reports things before they know the facts, so I’m sure more accurate details will be forthcoming.
“Why would anyone bring a countdown clock to school?”
Ever seen a digital timer? 
Your smartphone has one. Your stove probably has one. NYC Times Square uses one to drop the crystal ball…
A “countdown clock” sounds scary. A “timer” sounds… so everyday.
The kid already said the charges were dropped.
On Wednesday afternoon, the second thing I read about it (either on Wired or Makezine) discussed the source for parts.
Never ever get tech news from a generic news site. They’re general incapable of understanding what they see.