![]() She wrote on Facebook that she did not fault the school or the police “for looking into what they saw as a potential threat,” but added that as a parent she would be upset if the situation had happened to her child. The mayor could not be reached for comment Wednesday night. “Ahmed’s arrest is a logical conclusion to Islamophobia in Irving and it’s deplorable,” the chairwoman of the Dallas County Democratic Party, Carol Donovan, said in a statement. The city’s mayor, Beth Van Duyne, has been outspoken in criticizing a Muslim group that mediates disputes between the area’s Muslim residents, accusing it of establishing an anti-American Shariah court of law. Texas Democrats said Ahmed’s detention was an outgrowth of the anti-Muslim sentiments of Irving officials. In a letter to parents, the school’s principal, Dan Cummings, informed them that the police had responded to a “suspicious-looking item on campus.” The Irving school district acknowledged in a statement Wednesday that the information released about the incident was “unbalanced,” but officials said they could not comment further because of student privacy laws. The clock was confiscated, and Ahmed was suspended from school for three days, until Thursday. “So it was really sad that she took a wrong impression of it.”įingerprints and a mug shot were taken at a juvenile detention center. “She thought it was a threat to her,” Ahmed told reporters Wednesday. Later, Ahmed’s clock beeped during an English class, and after he revealed the device to the teacher, school officials notified the police, and Ahmed was interrogated by officers. He said he took it to school on Monday to show an engineering teacher, who said it was nice but then told him he should not show the invention to other teachers. It was bigger and bulkier than a typical bedside clock, with cords, screws and electrical components. He made the clock out of a metal briefcase-style box, a digital display, wires and a circuit board. The thing in question was the product of Ahmed’s love of invention. “You can’t take things like that to school,” he said. “That is not America,” he said of Ahmed’s detainment. Zuckerberg, a founder of Facebook, Ahmed said, “It felt really outstanding,” adding that he wanted to use his moment in the spotlight to “try my best not just to help me but to help every other kid in the entire world that has a problem like this.” He introduced himself, after saying “as-salaamu alaykum,” the Muslim greeting of peace, as “the person who built a clock and got in a lot of trouble for it.”Īhmed’s father, Mohamed El Hassan, 54, was at turns humble, emotional, grateful and patriotic, making it a point to mention they lived in their house for more than 30 years and that his son had fixed his car, his phone, his electricity and his computer and had built, in true all-American fashion, a go-kart. Here are the factors in play.Īsked about the attention and support he had received from Mr. Teacher Shortage : While the pandemic has created an urgent search for teachers in some areas, not every district is suffering from shortages.High School Football: Supply chain problems have slowed helmet manufacturing, leaving coaches around the country scrambling to find protective gear for their teams.Turning to the Sun: Public schools are increasingly using savings from solar energy to upgrade facilities, help their communities and give teachers raises - often with no cost to taxpayers.Drop-Off Outfits: As children return to the classroom, parents with a passion for style are looking for ways to feel some sense of chic along the way to school.The president’s spokesman said the episode was a case study in unreasoned prejudice in an era when the country is fighting Islamic terrorism at home and in the Middle East. 19, an event bringing together scientists, engineers, astronauts, teachers and students to spend a night stargazing from the South Lawn. Obama’s staff invited Ahmed to the White House for Astronomy Night on Oct. “Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. “Cool clock, Ahmed,” President Obama said on Twitter. By Wednesday, it had brought him an invitation to the White House, support from Hillary Rodham Clinton and Mark Zuckerberg, and a moment of head-spinning attention as questions arose whether he had been targeted because of his name and his religion.Īs a result, a 14-year-old freshman at MacArthur High School in Irving, Tex., who is partial to tinkering, technology and NASA T-shirts and wants to go to M.I.T., found himself in a social media whirlwind that reflected the nation’s charged debates on Islam, immigration and ethnicity. HOUSTON - Ahmed Mohamed’s homemade alarm clock got him suspended from his suburban Dallas high school and detained and handcuffed by police officers on Monday after school officials accused him of making a fake bomb. ![]()
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