Sorghum, of course Snopes says that the sister made such claims. Read it again. And I never said that Snopes weighed in on the truth of those claims. It’s also clear that neither the sister nor Snopes or anyone else (other than one person here) has claimed (let alone admitted) that she actually brought a hoax bomb to school.
No, Snopes says somebody else said …
From Snopes:
Maybe everybody’s right, it looks like Snopes says someone said she said that someone said she said she was going to …
I’ve seen easier paths to follow.
Sorghum, read it again! “sub-controversies involving reports that” refers only to reports that Ahmed transferred the mechanism. “Claims by his sister” relates back grammatically to “sub-controversies involving.” In other words, it says “sub-controversies involving. . . claims by his sister.” It does not say that “somebody else said” that the sister made such claims.
So, as always, I am unquestionably correct as a matter of grammar! And to end the nonsensical squabbling, I’m also correct substantively, because Snopes’ source was a Daily Beast interview with Ahmed’s family:
Once again: this is a far cry from TatinG’s claim – asserted as an unequivocal statement of fact – that she actually brought a hoax bomb to school.
It is amazing this is still going on, and it is the same thing, those who claim the school was 'simply following procedure"
“People are often led astray by slanted wording in agenda driven media accounts. We really have no facts on the incident involving Ahmed’s sister, so I will not comment. But I don’t find that assertion any less objectionable than the one that has permeated this thread - that those who felt that the school needed to follow whatever policies and procedures that were in place were somehow motivated by the fact that Ahmed was Muslim.” (@harvestmoon1)
This argument drives me nuts, because I haven’t seen one thing that has shown me that the school was following procedure in what they did to the kid:
1)The student handbook that someone published on this thread had no mention of electronic devices, it had no mention of what policy the kid supposedly violated. I have heard arguments that go “well, my kids schools have a no electronics policy, that can get them suspened”, which is all great and good, but what does that have to do with a school in Irving, Texas? What is the school policy he violated that would have gotten him in trouble? Where is this mysterious policy, and where was it written down? All we continue to get from the school is some mysterious claim that the policy he violated is information they cannot release, which is utter BS, school policy and rules are public information. So where is this mystical policy that the school was justified in enforcing? It certainly wasn’t that the school thought it was a bomb, that has been disproven by their own statement and actions…so what policy? He didn’t bring a knife to school, he didn’t bring a bb gun, he didn’t bring ammunition (he could have brought an AK 47, though, guns of course are just good, clean fun for a school kid to have…and take a look at the school student handbook, it specifically does not mention guns, it seems like as long as they are unloaded, it is okay), so what policy did he violate? I challenge anyone to cite a specific policy, other than some school spokesmen saying “he was treated according to school policy, but we cannot talk about it publicly”. Sounds to me like Dean Wormer and his double secret probation, using a secret codicile to the Faber charter.
2)Then we have the second part, calling in the local cops. Why? Was that part of school policy? had they called in the cops when other violations of school policy happened, like if a kid got caught with a knife? The cops have admitted they knew it wasn’t a bomb when they were called, so how was this school policy?The argument fox news and right wing websites are using is they were citing Texas law about bomb hoaxes…the problem with this is many, but the big one is that apparently no one seemed to think it was a bomb hoax, because for a hoax to work as a hoax they would have had to think it was a real bomb at some point, but apparently, they never did, because if they did, they would have called the cops when the ‘device’ came out of the kids bag, but they didn’t. I don’t know what order of logic people are using, but when you see something you think is suspicious, you get people the hell out of the way and you call the bomb squad…which they never did. Living in an area that has had actual bomb scares, some of them real, some not, you see how it is handled, and you never assume it isn’t a bomb unless you are absolutely sure it isn’t, and the procedure that is drilled into first responders, cops, and firemen, is if it looks like a bomb, evacuate the area, and get the bomb squad, and they didn’t do that, which means they knew pretty much from minute 1 it wasn’t a bomb, which also means they couldn’t honestly come to the conclusion it was meant as a hoax.
Then, too, the school saw the cops take the kid out in handcuffs, in front of the other kids, which is a violation of school policy, and also is a violation of minor’s rights. Having a ‘perp walk’ for a 14 year old student, especially one who was being taken in for questioning, is suspect, and the principal had every duty to stop the cops from doing that, but he didn’t, he could have had them take the kid out through a back entrance quietly, but the idiot allowed that to happen, which tells me he wanted it to happen…and that raises the question, why?
Then, we have the fact that mysteriously the kid wasn’t charged, he was let go. Some on here argue it is because of the liberal media, how they made such an uproar justice couldn’t be served, but there is a problem with that. Despite popular myth, DA’s don’t just throw out cases like this because of media pressure, their first instinct is to find a reason to hold someone so they can gather evidence for a grand jury. Several members of my family worked as ADA’s in NYC, and the one thing they stressed was when someone was brought in, that it was assumed there had been a reason to and they don’t lightly drop suspects. A big one is if a cop brings someone in, and then they are let go, especially in a situation like this, it is opening the cops up to a lawsuit, and the DA’s office doesn’t want that, if they have someone in a short time then let them go, that is a big admission that likely they had no basis to bring the person in in the first place. The DA basically told the cops to let him go because there was no reason he should have been brought in, which I would speculate they did to ‘teach the kid a lesson’, to 'scare the #**# out of him" and so forth.
I really hope that the parents get good legal advice and they don’t settle, that they force this to trial, so that both the police and the school motives and reasons finally come up for air, because all I keep hearing is basically if the school and the cops acted as they did, they must have had a good reason, it is blind faith in institutions that often have been wrong (“of course he had to nail my head to the floor, I deserved it…I broke the unwritten law, and since Dinsey said it, of course I believe it”). Hopefully the feds will investigate as well, so you can’t have some smirking jerk from the school board claiming ‘confidential information’, they can’t hide behind that in court, they aren’t the CIA or NSA. And if it turns out they do have more information, then the school should welcome this, as should the law and order crowd, if in fact Ahmed did something wrong, then court will be a chance to prove that Fox News and Matt Drudge are right. One of the neat things about our country is that someone is innocent until proven guilty, so if the people saying Ahmad deserved what he got, then let the truth come out, and the only way that will happen will be in a court I suspect.
Pages 6, 7, 8 and 9 of the Irving, Texas independent school district code of conduct contain the relevant guidelines for anyone interested in actually reading them. Also note the first page, not the cover, but the first page, of the code of conduct. The code can be find on the school website.
I just read the code of conduct. I see nothing in there that justifies the school district calling the cops.
@fireandrain … A poster pointed out several times upthread that the arrest was justifiable under Texas hoax bomb law. Even if they knew it was not a real bomb, it’s still a crime in Texas to present a device that fits the definition of a hoax bomb…and his device absolutely did. You may not agree with the law, but it’s on the books and the arrest was justifiable. Smart or not…that remains to be seen.
Questioning a minor without parental presence is gonna be a lot harder to explain.
How does this TX law define hoax bombs?
Nothing I have read suggests this “clock” was intended as a bomb hoax. The hoax bomb idea seems to be an eye-of-the-beholder sort of judgement. What happens if the beholder is just sort of ignorant?
Shoes have been used to hold explosives. Are all the kids at this school wearing hoax bombs?
Don’t you have to claim something is a bomb for it to be a bomb hoax?
“A hoax is a deliberately fabricated falsehood made to masquerade as truth.”
wolverine, I’m referring solely to the school’s code of conduct.
Although I do agree with alh and musicpnt and others that I don’t see how Ahmed’s device fits the description of a hoax bomb.
If I walk into the school, hold up a book (a real book) and say, “This is a bomb,” then I suppose under Texas law I could be arrested for having a hoax bomb.
If I walk into the school, hold up a book and say, “This is a book,” can I be arrested?
Ahmed said he had a clock. How is that different than my book? If the school opens my book, and it’s actually a bomb – then I can be arrested for having a bomb, not a hoax bomb. If Ahmed’s device was actually a bomb, when he said it was a clock, then he could be arrested for having a bomb. But if he says it’s a clock, and it really is a clock, and the school and the cops know it is a clock, how is it a hoax bomb?
Some have suggested bringing the clock to school may have been a deliberately provocative act. Even if it was, I can’t see what school rules were broken that justified a suspension, much less what justified an arrest.
OTOH, I am relieved no one seems to think it was justified he be questioned without parents present.
@fireandrain … I would imagine the major difference in your scenario would be that your “book” is not a series of electronic components packed into a small box.
I’m not arguing how this event was handled one way or the other. No one on this thread (except for @Hunt who was shouted down multiple pages ago) wants to be reasonable and let the whole story play out before making judgments. You could find and post the actual verbiage of the statute here and the outraged on both sides of this “discussion” would read and interpret it to suit their own opinion and agendas.
It’s the nature and epitome of these types of threads. Plenty of vitriol and hyperbole on both sides and any reasonable voices recommending patience get ignored. Even when all the facts are eventually revealed, neither side ever admits they rushed to judgment. It’s as predictable as the sun rising in the East.
Are you in agreement that outrage is warranted when a minor is questioned without parents?
The Texas hoax bomb statute requires intent: the person has to exhibit the device with the intention of having people think it’s a bomb. I don’t see how showing someone a clock and saying it’s a clock qualifies.
@alh … I certainly agree it needs to be explained.
Cardinal Fang: Once again, thank you for looking up the law.
I start from the fact this 14 yr old was not allowed to call his parents by the police and was questioned without his parents present. At that point, I am not feeling good about the judgement of the police in this case. Add to that we know no one believed it to be a bomb. Because if they had believed that, they would have evacuated.
Even IF this was a deliberately provocative act, it doesn’t seem to have been criminal or even against school rules. I am having difficulty seeing how bringing electronics to school is a deliberately provocative act, if electronics aren’t forbidden at the school.
I can’t fathom how it could be considered a bomb hoax. Legally, it doesn’t seem to be.
I wouldn’t be so quick to judge that “book” by its cover. If someone claims an ordinary thing is going to give you the new look, and that ordinary looking thing is big enough to hold sufficient (name your explosive of choice) and ball bearings to do the job, I’d hedge toward giving them the benefit of the doubt. There was a post several pages ago where someone discussed IED’s that looked like ordinary objects (phones, for example) they’d reviewed while on active duty.
On the other hand, even Freud probably knew that sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar.
@cardinal fang:
Thank you! Finally a voice of reason, that to claim something is a hoax you have to prove that there was the intention to commit a hoax…and in the case of a hoax bomb, other than maybe schlubs among the local cops, if you want to commit a hoax with something that looks like a bomb, you leave it somewhere for someone to find, you don’t take it out of a backpack and call it a clock, it makes no sense, and quite honestly, that almost totally makes it that he intended a hoax, if he had pulled it out of his bag and said “this is a bomb”, that would be covered, but he carefully said it was a clock, and his other actions (ie showing it to a teacher) makes it even less likely that it was a hoax, yet the local jerks arrested him…I don’t understand how people can claim he should have been arrested under the hoax law, when none of his actions showed that intent, the only reason seems to be he was muslim, so of course he was up to no good. Since they couldn’t claim they thought it was a bomb, since the school knew that almost from the get go, and so did the cops, then they basically took him in for questioning using the hoax law when legally, they had no basis to do so, they had no probable cause to believe it was a hoax…and I suspect that if the federal government acts, they will take action over this very reason, that the cops acted without probably cause, based on the facts that we know. You can’t bring someone in for questioning for violating a law if you don’t have possible intent, and in this case, no facts supported that argument.
" I would imagine the major difference in your scenario would be that your “book” is not a series of electronic components packed into a small box."
Yes and no, because a hollowed out book would be great way to hide a bomb device, if someone seriously wants to bomb something, they aren’t going to have a device with a clock face on it, people have seen too many movies, that countdown timer is a great plot device, or the dynamite wired to an alarm clock, but that is television and the movies, in real life terrorists who plant bombs don’t do that, they don’t need to, a timer can be nothing more than a chip with a couple of wires to the explosive and to the power source. Among other things, having a clock device on a bomb would make it easier to disable it, if all I have is a circuit board with a couple of chips, a bunch of wires and an explosive, lot harder to disable it. I think people have watched far too many movies and tv shows, where McGuyver or Richard Harris saves the day by disabling the bomb with the digital display. In effect, the claim that this was a bomb hoax probably was because in their minds, of course a bomb has a clock on it, which is mostly myth, almost comic book.
Ahmed is moving to Qatar.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ahmed-mohamed-qatar_5626a2f0e4b02f6a900e54c2