A 14-year-old Muslim student from a Dallas suburb gained national attention after taking his homemade digital clock to school got him arrested—and an invitation to the White House.
Ahmed Mohamed designed and made a digital clock in his bedroom over the weekend and took it to MacArthur High School in Irving, Texas, on Monday to show off his handiwork. Alarmed teachers said it looked like a bomb and called police, who detained the boy before releasing him to his parents.
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The incident went viral on social media, with tweets coming from across Silicon Valley to the White House.
“It was the first time I brought an invention to school to show a teacher,” Ahmed said in an interview with WFAA television. “They arrested me and told me I committed the crime of creating a hoax bomb.”
A photo of Ahmed shows the ninth-grader leaving the school with hands cuffed behind his back and wearing a gray T-shirt with a NASA logo.
“The student showed the device to a teacher who was concerned it was possibly the infrastructure for a bomb,” said Irving Police Chief Larry Boyd at a news conference Wednesday. “The student would only say that it was a clock and wasn’t forthcoming at that time with any further details.”
Chief Boyd said Ahmed was handcuffed for his own safety and the safety of the officers who detained him. The teen, he said, won’t be charged.
“The follow-up investigation revealed that the device was apparently a homemade experiment and there’s no evidence to support the perception he intended to create alarm,” he added.
The school, which didn’t respond to a request for comment, suspended Ahmed until Thursday, he said.
“I was definitely pleased that they dropped the charges when I didn’t commit a crime,” Ahmed said at a news conference where he thanked people for their support.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations said Ahmed was detained in large part because of his ethnicity and called the incident anti-Islamic on its website.
“The Irving police department has always experienced an outstanding relationship with our Muslim community,” Chief Boyd said at the news conference. He pledged to work to strengthen that relationship and to meet with Ahmed’s parents.
Ahmed’s story became a social media sensation Wednesday, as the photo of him being arrested was retweeted repeatedly. The hashtag #IStandWithAhmed became a trending topic on Twitter.
President Barack Obama tweeted: “Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House?” And Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg invited Ahmed to visit him at the company’s headquarters.
“What’s happening is touching the heart of everybody that has children,” said Ahmed’s father at a news conference Wednesday, referring to the huge response on social media. “Because that is America. When something is wrong they stand and rise up.”
Ahmed said he is “thinking about transferring schools from MacArthur to any different school. As for college: “I really want to go to MIT,” he said.
Irving Mayor Beth Van Duyne said in a post on her Facebook page that she doesn’t fault the school or police for their actions.
“I hope this incident doesn’t serve as a deterrent against our police and school personnel from maintaining the safety and security of our schools,” she said. “As a parent, I agree that if this happened to my child I would be very upset.”
The incident underscores increasing concerns from Muslim Americans about discrimination, and worse. Many cite the killings in February of three young Muslim Americans in North Carolina as evidence of rising anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S.
Muslim activists tracking threats and discrimination against Muslims have complained of a rise of such incidents in recent years—especially in the wake of high-profile arrests of young people accused of ties to terrorist groups such as Islamic State.
A Pew Research Center study from 2014 showed that Americans view Muslims most unfavorably out of all religious groups, including atheists. The study also showed that only 38% of Americans say they know someone who is a Muslim.
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