http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34266389

The is that policeman actually serious?
“He would only say it’s a clock”
“he didn’t say what it was for”

“he didn’t say what it was for”

he could have replied “it’s for telling the time!”

Obviously a bomb. Everyone knows they have massive LED displays. Luckily it can easily be defused with 1 second left by cutting the green wire.

If this homemade clock was, as suggested by the that article, a briefcase with wires hanging out and making beeping noises, I think the police we’re acting reasonably in exercising caution. It is America after all, where anything goes and there are nutters a plenty. At least he wasn’t shot.

he could have replied “it’s for telling the time!”

Maybe he assumed they would realise it was ‘just a clock’,surely his engineering teacher could have been a bit more forthcoming in his support.
Over reaction by all involved IMO.

Ahmed Mohamed

😯

Awesome bit of story twist there from Obama’s team. He goes up another notch of respect in my book.

You can say, there’s maybe reasonable doubt there initially. But he was arrested, it says, for having a “hoax bomb”. Now maybe you can mistake a clock for a bomb, but when a kid makes a clock and says, look, I made a clock, you can’t accuse him of a bomb hoax, because he’s not hoaxing anyone and he’s not pretending to have a bomb.

if it looks like a clock, ticks like a clock and tells the time, its probably an ACME bomb

I’m kinda torn on this.

On the one hand, it’s a bit crap that “brown person with a bunch of electronics” has immediately led to the conclusion “terrorist” and arresting him seems somewhat excessive.

On the other, I’d rather someone was wrongfully accused of having a bomb than wrongfully ignored for having a clock.

Sorted.

Sorted.

Though having now seen it, he might not want to arrive carrying in a backpack, or stuck down the front of his coat.

I’ve got a watch he could have borrowed.

Police officer took one look at him and said “That’s who I thought it was”.

Maybe worth pointing out that’s not a big briefcase, goign by the plug it’s one of those little toolkit style cases, about the size of a hardback book.

All this in a state where you can openly carry a machine gun…

Every electronics project looks like that.

That picture ^^ looks very much like it has been carefully staged to look as “bomb-like” as possible.

Take any bit of low-grade or hobby electronics to bits, leaving exposed circuit board and wires hanging out and it’ll look pretty similar.

Of course the obvious missing component is anything that looks remotely like a block of explosive.

(Edit: gfs beat me to the same point)

even landrovers can look like that 🙂

Yup, I once took an electric bike battery to Germany by air. On X-ray it shows up as lots of cylinders wired to a circuit board.

A mate of mine had an exciting chat with the men with the guns in London City- his poker chip case and game timer were interesting looking in the xray machine.

Have they checked his google history to check that he hasn’t searched for “where can I get some weapons grade plutonium” in a naive Sheldon Cooper way

and it still looks nothing like a bomb. I think the Irving PD needs training on bomb identification.

I used to carry around home made electronics wired to LiIon battery packs when I flew and never had a problem even through US security – and that was after 2001 (though I’d graduated to home made SM PCBs and components by that time).

I’m guessing the “broader explanation” may have been “it was extra work in the engineering class”, or “I’m an electronics hobbyist”.

But I guess the cops don’t ask the right questions like “why did you build it?”. They went for the stupidity of “What’s it for?”. 🙄

I think the most telling thing from the original story was when one of the reporters asked the teachers and police;

“Did you evacuate the school”
“Ummm … No”

So exactly how much of a “threat” did they ever really perceive, and how much are they backpedaling to cover up the fact that he got treated like this because of his name and colour?

Even if they thought it was a timer for a bomb, why would they evacuate the school? Timers aren’t generally all that dangerous, there’s one on my oven and I don’t evacuate the house every time I chuck a pie in it.

I wondered the same thing eat_the_pudding.

The BBC coverage suggested he wasn’t removed from class and detain until later in the day.

The teenager said another teacher became aware of it when the device beeped during the lesson.

“She was like – it looks like a bomb,” he said.

The homemade clock consisted of a circuit board with wires leading to a digital display.

Later in the day the boy was pulled out of class, interviewed by senior teachers and four police officers, and put into juvenile detention.

Surely if they genuinely thought it was a bomb they would have detained him immediately and evacuated.

All in all it’s a pretty good example of why the NRA’s plan to give teachers guns is more than a little flawed!

Even if they thought it was a timer for a bomb, why would they evacuate the school?

They (reportedly) thought it was a bomb, not just a timer.

If they thought it was a timer they’d have been right, because it is 😀

The amusing thing is of course,

If it turns out that he actually is a proto-terrorist after all, he’s just been given an invite to the White House along with a free pass not to have any home-made electronics inspected too closely.

I’d hope that the White House security team would know the difference between a bomb and a clock. 😀

re: Cougar
I’m not sure I understand your comment?

No-one has been accused of making “a timer for a bomb”

They were implying that it was an actual bomb or a hoax bomb, and actually threatening to charge him with making a hoax bomb.

If they genuinely though that either of those things were true what should they have done first?

And how did they even establish that it was a “hoax” bomb without calling the bomb squad which they didn’t do either?

So exactly how much of a “threat” did they ever really perceive, and how much are they backpedaling to cover up the fact that he got treated like this because of his name and colour?

this

I think the logic, and it’s rubbish logic, is that they never thought it was a real bomb, they thought it was a hoax bomb.

Perhaps a little naive for him to make it in a sort of suitacase. But given he’s at a school, where he’s known, presumably they also know he has a talent with electronics?
Also surely the first thing they would have done would be to ask him what it was? I mean it was next to him in class, not dumped in a corridor FFS.

If it turns out that he actually is a proto-terrorist after all, he’s just been given an invite to the White House along with a free pass not to have any home-made electronics inspected too closely.

I’ve been thinking exactly the same. They are hardly going to turn him around at the door if his clock looks like a bomb!

Looks to me like phase one of the dastardly plan to kill the president is complete, now on to phase two…..

No-one has been accused of making “a timer for a bomb”

They were implying that it was an actual bomb or a hoax bomb, and actually threatening to charge him with making a hoax bomb.

Where they? That seems a bit silly. I’m no expert on such things, but I’d have thought that one of the key components of a bomb is some sort of explosive. A breadboard with a few LEDs on it isn’t generally known for their explosive properties (though a mate of mine did manage to hit the ceiling with a 741 op-amp once).

Perhaps a little naive for him to make it in a sort of suitacase

It’s not that big. In the original BBC video he described it as “a pencil case”.

According to the latest BBC video he is still suspended from school ?!
(but they have generously decided not to press charges)

meanwhile over in the UK a 13 year old schoolboy builds his own nuclear fission reactor, gets given a grant for it and rightfully receives worldwide acclaim for it…only in America will they be this stupid!

yeah Texas !!!

these kids werent arrested

Ah, but they’re real guns, not hoax guns.

Along with the bomb identification training for the Irving PD, I’m also going to sign them up for English comprehension lessons, focusing on the word “hoax”.