Quite apart from the administrative response, do you really want an English teacher deciding whether an unorthodox electronic device is explosive or not? Based on what? A chem lab he took 10 years ago? Familiarity with Bruce Willis movies? And the assumption that explosives cannot have changed in a world where all other electronic devices change drastically in 18 months or less.
Gotta love hindsight.
Seriously, I’m on the team that wonders why the admins did not evacuate the school. Seems like a no- brainer to me. You still have 1% doubt? Evacuate the kids.
I’ve been in spots analogous to this. You don’t talk it over. You save the freaking kids. Then you talk it over.
That’s the argument here. Not if Ahmed should get punished; but if the school acted fast enough in the face of a credible threat.
Who suggested this? Nobody in this thread. Some people, myself included, have said that once the principal was satisfied that this device was not a bomb and had not been represented as a bomb, Ahmed deserved no suspension. Moreover, once the police were satisfied that the device was not a bomb, which according to the police chief happened almost immediately, there was no call to arrest Ahmed.
Bombs can also look like pressure cookers, for what it’s worth. It’s definitely not easy being a principal or a teacher and having to encourage creativity while running a safe school in these days of random violence.
I am just wondering how everyone would feel if, after showing it to one teacher it turned out to be a bomb and someone was killed.
This is a highly charged area. We have actually had Muslim extremists trying to kill people.
Once a few more details are released, it will become more evident that this was not a harmless experiment by a kid. This was a deliberate attempt to scare people. (by the way, that is the definition of terrorism) I am not saying the kid is a terrorist, but many HS kids do extremely stupid things to get a reaction. In this case, it appears the father encouraged the act.
If a kid brings a homemade gun to school with no bullets he or she would be suspended and possibly arrested even though it was harmless without the ammunition…especially after showing it around a few times. Heck, even if it was just a plastic object that looked like a gun there would be a suspension. In some schools, there would be discipline just for setting off an alarm clock in the middle of class.
I think if this kid was not a Muslim, it just would not have made the national news…of course, that was the dad’s objective.
Crime is much lower today than it is a generation or two ago, yet it sure does seem like fear of crime is much higher today than a generation or two ago.
What evidence is there of that? Or is this just the tendency of some people to imagine terrorist motives everywhere?
Did the officer in back say “Yeah, that’s who I thought it would be” because
A) the kid was known for being inventive?
B) the kid fit a racial and ethnic stereotype?
Please, a potato clock looks more like a grenade than this does a bomb.
I keep seeing ugly implications that his dad put him up to it … have you bothered to look at the pictures of this kid’s lab / room that he sleeps in? If those implications are true, this is a truly remarkable cover story.
He was a minor who was questioned for an hour and a half without his parents present. He asked to call them and was told no. That’s inexcusable no matter what he did.
Homer Hickam (‘Rocket Boys’ author) offered a trip and Space Camp to this student. Beside Obama wanting him to visit the White House, Mark Zuckerberg extended an invitation to Facebook’s office. So some good is coming out of this for this student. School admin and police need to get a grip!
Did you see the video of the Dallas Morning News interview with Ahmed? Articulate young man and I do not think malicious, but he states clearly in his own voice on video that he knew the device could be seen as a threat when he brought it to school and did it anyway. Had that been my kid I would have busted his butt.
“Really? Even my kid who is not a Robotics kid worked on a number of gadgets that required her schlepping electronic gizmos and thingamajiggers to school. Let’s not be so dismissive of STEM and all the wonderful things are kids can be working on and bringing back and forth to school.”
In all of my kids’ schools, electronic devices are specifically prohibited, including phones in all classrooms and calculators in non math classes. Robotics are never allowed anywhere but the robotics rooms. I can’t imagine where you live that having a large, noisy electronic device would be anything but cause for exclusion from the classroom. And the kid and his family are eating this up, interesting folks, his family. In the religion of virtue signaling, this is an absolute boon to a lot of people.
A 12 year old shot dead in his yard is a national tragedy and outrage. The handcuffing of a clueless brat is just another example of an out of control government.
“And yet every day, boys and girls do bring electronic devices to school: calculators, cell phones, nintendo DS. Some of them beep in class.”
And in every class my kids have ever been in or taught and according to all official,policy those kids would have the item immediately confiscated and or be suspended as a violation of the express rules of the schools. This is simply not allowed here, ever.
Flymetothemoon, it’s on the Dallas morning news website. (Dallasnews.com) and it’s titled Irving MacArthur student arrested after bringing a clock to school. It’s on youtube and I’m going to link it because DMN is a reputable news source, but linking video may violate TOS even in that circumstance, so if it does, it should be removed with my apologies.
@zoosermom , if your kids’ school does not allow kids to carry calculators around outside of math class, it has a stricter policy than I’ve ever seen. In middle school my kids didn’t even have lockers, so the calculators were always with them. And if they had free time in any class I seriously doubt that there was a rule against working on algebra problems.
They’d quite possibly get them taken away if they beeped or disturbed the class. But I doubt anyone would call the cops.
And as for comparing this to a 12 year old being shot, I don’t think anyone suggested this was comparable. I certainly don’t think so. But “just” an out of control government is a pretty significant problem in my mind, especially where it involve police behaving this way towards a child.
The school code of conduct is available on the school website, and while it is a bit less onerous than what is familiar here, it’s clear that Ahmed and his family would have known that bringing his clock to another classroom probably would have been a violation because they would have had to sign that they received and read the code. I don’t understand why he didn’t give it to the teacher he wanted to see it for safekeeping rather than carrying it around. Of course it’s possible the parents didn’t know what he had because heaven knows that happens, but I think that Ahmed made a poor decision that had consequences. That happens, too.
onward, actually he did not even build a clock he dissembled a clock from the original exterior and put in the case.(not the same as building from scratch)
and if a kid brought that to my school I hope the authorities check it out! (which of course going forward I promise you they will not want to…if I was a cop and got a call like that I would be like…ummm not getting involved)
meanwhile the 5 year old pop tart kid got kicked out of school.and nobody found that weird , disturbing and he was not invited by obama to the white house. this story is just an attempt at faux outrage with an agenda.