“Yeah. If you see someone walking around with a briefcase with a countdown timer display on it, you should definitely be afraid the person is carrying a bomb-- provided you happen to live inside a Batman comic. Otherwise, not so much.”
And of course, the general public, particularly high school kids should know this, right? Even though the greater exposure they usually get to bombs is in the movies. Where of course, there always is a countdown timer.
When did tin hats come into fashion?
@zobroward To answer your earlier question: no, of course I wouldn’t try to carry something like that onto a plane or into a courthouse, nor would I make “humorous” remarks about bombs or whatever in the security line…because I AM 62!!! Not 14!
No maybe about it. The police are not supposed to treat a 14 year old like an adult when questioning him. If that happened to my 14 year old I’d be livid.
“And no, he is 14 years old and treating him “like an adult” is NEVER justified. Because he isn’t one. And even if he were trying a bomb hoax, he is 14 years old, and what he does should be viewed in that context: 14 years old.”
I don’t think it always works this way. Kids younger than 14 have been tried (or attempted to be tried) as adults. And I suspect that you might agree with some of the more heinous cases where that has happened.
"Uh, no. The story started out that a kid who liked to tinker with stuff decided to make something to show what he does to his teacher, and the kid said he threw it together in about 20 minutes the night before. I did not detect any claims of “genius.” I saw descriptions of a tinkerer with some intellectual curiosity who liked to tinker with stuff.
Perhaps it depends on your news source…"
Perhaps it does. I wonder why Zuckerberg, President Obama, and MIT have expressed interest in a kid who merely threw a couple of things together in 20 minutes that he bought from Radio Shack. Perhaps they were left with the same impression, that he was a very smart kid who put together something rather impressive? Perhaps they have the same news source. 
College Confidential, of course!
When a kid is tried as an adult, as I understand it there is a determination made by the courts that it is appropriate in that particular case.
The fact that some minors are tried as adults does not mean that police can treat a 14 year old like an adult during initial questioning.
It is amazing how those trying to defend the school’s handling of this come up with creative fiction to try and defuse it
1)He did this deliberately, knowing the reaction, he was an agent provocateur to play the Muslim card…and dear old dad was part of it. Really? So this was a deliberate setup to get him arrested, etc…and what is the proof of this? Reminds me of those who say a rape victim was ‘asking for it’ because she was wearing sexy clothing,it is trying to blame the victim for what happened.
2)Was the kid stupid? I could argue in this climate, yeah, but that doesn’t mean the kid deserved what happened, kids do stupid things. I don’t know whether this was a clever hack, or the kid repackaged something else, but the key factor here is intent, and I don’t see any. If the kid set out to scare people, as some of the ones scoffing that the kid did this deliberately are saying, why would the kid when showing it say it was a clock, then? If his intent was to scare people, he wouldn’t show it to his engineering teacher, and he wouldn’t take it out of his backpack to show the twit english teacher and say it was a clock…he would leave it someplace and watch people freak out…
The only conclusion I can come to by people who believe this was deliberate was that they assume that the kid knew he was Muslim, would assume that others seeing that a muslim kid with a clock like unit would assume suicide bomber,and freak…
3)@zoosermom, you keep going on that your school has bans on any electronics devices, how that shows the kid was wrong. Your school is your school, not all schools have such bans, my local schools don’t, pure and simple, kids have cell phones , portable game players, tablets, etc in many schools. More importantly, your point is totally bogus, the school code of conduct was posted, and there is no such ban in this school…;so what policy was the kid violating…you think they arrested him because your school doesn’t allow electronics? what your school does is irrelevant to the conversation, it is like saying if someone gets caught doing 90 mph in a state where some highways have no speed limits, that they should be arrested for reckless driving cause in other states it is 65?
4)As far as the English teacher or any teacher not knowing it was not a bomb, give me a break. We have spent the last 14 years being obsessed with terrorism, since 9/11, and the news and everything else has been full of accounts of bombing, not to mention accounts of real bombs. For one thing , the size of this unit would make it being a bomb unlikely, even with C4 or some other powerful plastic explosive, with the case in question it would be an idiotic, and we have seen enough pictures of terrorist bombs to realize something that small would be a poor bomb…plus again, did she assume he was a suicide bomber, out to get her? If the kid really had a bomb, unless you assume he was a suicide bomber, why would he show it to her? I think this is another case of him being Muslim came in, if this was Joe Pulley, the local kid on the football team, she wouldn’t think ‘suicide bomber’, but because he was muslim, she wouldn’t think “why would he show me this if it was a bomb”, she thought “OMG, he must be part of a Jihad and blowing himself up”, nothing else makes sense, she panicked because he was muslim…not that I can prove it, but I would bet pretty good money that had this been joe pulley, she would have scolded him for it going off in class, confiscating it and maybe, maybe give the kid detention.
Then, too, it has a power cord, is she that stupid to think that someone would create a bomb you plug in?
5)Another thing to think about, in said school kids probably have cell phones, tablets, you name it (since the policy doesn’t ban electronics). So let’s say a kid pulls out a cellphone in the middle of class, because it made a sound, would the teacher freak out? Yet a cellphone, while too small to hold enough explosives to do much damage (yes, I realize there are high powered explosives that in that space could do damage, but they also tend to be unstable and not exactly easy to make or get), could be used as a trigger for a real bomb, but do you think the teacher would freak out if a kid took out his cell phone or tablet in class? I doubt it. Also, in theory a cell phone or tablet could have toxic compounds put it in, that they could trigger and put out poison gas…so basically anything can be deadly…
6)It is also interesting that people dance around something interesting in this school, that school policy does not forbid kids carrying unloaded weapons , the policy bans look alikes, it bans ammunition, etc. I wonder if some all american kid came into school with dad’s uzi in his backpack, if they would treat the kid the way they treated Mohammad. Would they take him out in handcuffs and to the police station for scaring people, or would they say “no harm done, it was unloaded”. It is amazing a kid could get busted for a bb gun or air rifle (loaded or unloaded), he could get busted for a pen knife, he could get busted for something they may have thought was a bomb, but if it was a gun there is no school policy against it, as long as it is unloaded. If the kid took the gun out in english class and the woman freaked, when the kid said it was unloaded, would the same people castigating the kid with the clock be outraged if Joe Pulley got taken in handcuffs for having a gun because the teacher freaked out, or would they be yelling government overreach and violating the second amendment? (which it doesn’t, banning weapons in school is perfectly legal, the second amendment doesn’t guarantee a right to carry guns everywhere, especially schools and such).
The response simply didn’t fit the ‘crime’, and the overreaction I think was because the kid was Muslim, it is the only conclusion I can reach. I can see the concern over the device, and yes, given today’s climate, it was a bit of a thoughless act, but should have been treated as one once they realized the kid hadn’t acted maliciously. I think if this had been another kid, they might even have suspended him a day or so, or given him detention, but I doubt very much they would get the local cops involved to this extent or arrest him, I would bet pretty good money that the cops were saying things like "let’s teach this snotty little jihadist a lesson’ and so forth. If they had seriously thought this was a bomb, if they didn’t realize early on that it wasn’t a threat, they would have called the bomb squad and would have evacuated the school, that is supposed to be SOP for these things, the fact they didn’t do that means they knew it wasn’t a bomb…and the arrest and so forth was pure retribution. And if you think if this had been Joe pulley, the localk kid on the football team, that they would have done the same thing, I have 2 bridges and a tunnel to sell you.
Of course the police knew it was not a bomb. He was not arrested because they thought it was a bomb. He was arrested and questioned because Texas has a statute that makes it illegal to construct a “hoax” bomb. They questioned him to ascertain his intent in making the device and bringing it into school.
Was the actual arrest necessary? Probably not but again I think the authorities wanted to send a message. And if my own children attended that school I would be quite happy that they sent that message out loud and clear.
Well, you would be wrong. No matter how heinous, the acts are the act of a kid with a kid’s experience and a kid’s brain. What to do with such a kid is a difficult question. Trying them as an adult is not the answer.
“What makes you think he was trying “to make people feel thretened”? To me, that’s not a logical conclusion to what happened. The device was in his backpack, he wasn’t showing it to anyone and therefore it’s hard to believe he was intending to scare anyone off. He was very surprised that people reacted that way”
That is why I said, “IF they thought that he was attempting to bring something that looked like a bomb, in order to make people feel threatened”. Note the word IF, at the beginning of the sentence. That might not be a simple thing to determine. Because it obviously looked like a fake bomb to some, and people obviously felt that it could look like a threatening item, which is why the engineering teacher told him not to show anyone else, the English teacher told the principal, and the principal called the police.
Kids are sometimes just trying things out initially, looking for a reaction. What if the next time, he tries out his Radio Shack invention in a public place? Or leaves it in the hall in the high school? It appears that he liked the reaction he ended up getting, saying, “That clock was part of my future.” After all, for just throwing something simple together, President Barack Obama invited him to the White House and praised his love of science. Leaders at Reddit and Twitter offered him internships. Google executives said they were reserving Ahmed a spot at their weekend science fair and MIT asked him to visit the campus. Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg invited him to visit the company’s headquarters, posting, “Having the skill and ambition to build something cool should lead to applause, not arrest. The future belongs to people like Ahmed.”
Impressive, such skill and ambition it took to buy a couple of premade parts, connect them together, and put them in a case? Enough that it deserves a White House visit, a highly sought after internship, and all sorts of accolades.
Not only did the President invite him but tweeted “how about bringing your clock to the White House?” How far do you think the boy would have gotten with that device if he arrived unannounced with it in his backpack? Would he have been arrested, detained and questioned? Most certainly he would have. And I am supposed to think my kids safety is less important than the Presidents? Nope. Sorry, I don’t think that way.
Forget talking about whether or not the school and police judged him because he is Arabic and Muslim.
Would we all be blaming the victim if he were white and Christian or atheist?
“Well, you would be wrong. No matter how heinous, the acts are the act of a kid with a kid’s experience and a kid’s brain. What to do with such a kid is a difficult question. Trying them as an adult is not the answer.”
It’s a tough call, and I’m glad it’s one that I don’t have to make. At the exact minute they turn 18, is that when? How about 17? 16? How about if it’s horrific crime that they planned for a long time? How about if they are over 18, and immature, or have a lower than average IQ?
I don’t know the answer to that, but kids are sometimes held to the same standards as adults. They can’t always be given a pass, just because they are young. A young killer is still a killer.
"Forget talking about whether or not the school and police judged him because he is Arabic and Muslim.
Would we all be blaming the victim if he were white and Christian or atheist?
Yes, of course. But we probably wouldn’t even be talking about it, it would have been a non-issue. And people wouldn’t be referring to him as a victim.
“@zobroward To answer your earlier question: no, of course I wouldn’t try to carry something like that onto a plane or into a courthouse, nor would I make “humorous” remarks about bombs or whatever in the security line…because I AM 62!!! Not 14!”
you missed the point! it is not about him being 14 or if he acted stupidly…it is about how the school responded. the thing looked like a bomb to most reasonable people (it did to me) and if you think it just looks like a clock you would be comfortable carrying into a court house or federal building. I guess you are acknowledging it looked suspicious and therefore know better than to carry something like that around.so why/how do expect the school to take any other action but to get the police (aka the authorities) involved to safely determine the correct action. I do not want my english teacher or principle involved in those things. and I am pretty certain he was not ignorant to what was going on from the minute he showed up at school that day. I am still on a side note interested in the fathers involvement .
his dad among other things ran for president of sudan
I think it is obvious that President Obama’s tweet was intended for the ears of every Muslim kid in the nation, reassuring them that are Americans just like the rest of us. And I think it was the right thing to do. It was a huge teachable moment, and he took excellent advantage of it.
We have seen what happens when young Muslim men become disaffected from society and therefore easy targets for radicalization, both here and in Europe.
would we all be blaming the victim…
[/QUOTE]
It’s part Luddite reaction, and part xenophobia, IMO. Plenty of bad grace to go around, particularly when those things are bundled together.
So yeah, I really don’t care where the kid is from, he’s got a cool lab, wears a NASA shirt, and kids pick on him because he’s smart. That he looks different is just another excuse for the ignorant.
what if next time he leaves it in a public place… (paraphrased)
[/QUOTE]
What if next week, you or I, instead of rolling through a stop sign, go full throttle down a crowded sidewalk. But we won’t, will we?
Put the bogeymen to bed. They’ve had a long week, and their union is about to file a grievance.
" President Obama’s tweet was intended for the ears of every Muslim kid in the nation, reassuring them that are Americans just like the rest of us"
he chose a bad example and has set up future situations where a teacher, principle, police etc… will ignore something rather than face ridicule.
the second statement is questionable but I will not touch that one.
50n40w
“What if next week, you or I, instead of rolling through a stop sign, go full throttle down a crowded sidewalk. But we won’t, will we?”
like this …
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-beverly-hills-cars-qatar-20150917-htmlstory.html
“part xenophobia” please offer some proof other than it just feels that way to you.