‘Bomb’ sets off a wave of support
A Muslim teenager arrested after a Texas teacher mistook his homemade clock for a bomb has won invitations to the White House, Google and Facebook in a surge of public support.
United States President Barack Obama congratulated Ahmed Mohamed, 14, on his skills in a pointed rebuke to school and police officials, who have defended his arrest, amid accusations of Islamophobia.
‘‘Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It’s what makes America great,’’ Obama tweeted.
A photo of Mohamed standing in handcuffs while wearing a T-shirt with the US space agency Nasa’s logo was retweeted thousands of times in a matter of hours.
Mohamed told the Dallas Morning News he hoped to impress his teachers by bringing the clock to school. ‘‘My hobby is to invent stuff,’’ he said in a video posted on the paper’s website, filmed in his electronics-filled bedroom.
‘‘I made a clock. It was really easy. I wanted to show something small at first . . . they took it wrong, so I was arrested for a hoax bomb.’’
The son of Sudanese immigrants who live in a Dallas suburb, Mohamed said he loved robotics club in middle school and was hoping to find something similar at MacArthur High School.
He did not get the reaction he hoped for when he showed the clock to his engineering teacher. ‘‘He was like, ‘That’s really nice. I would advise you not to show any other teachers’,’’ Mohamed said.
When the clock’s alarm went off in another class, the teacher told Mohamed that it looked like a bomb, and confiscated it.
The school called the police, and Mohamed was taken away in handcuffs amid suspicion he intended to frighten people with the device.
Police said they has determined that the teenager had no malicious intent and it was ‘‘just a naive set of circumstances’’.
Irving police chief Larry Boyd insisted that Mohamed’s ethnicity had nothing to do with the response. ‘‘Our reaction would have been the same either way. That’s a very suspicious device,’’ he said.
A school district spokeswoman also stood by the establishment’s response, telling reporters that anyone who saw the homemade clock would understand that ‘‘we were doing everything with an abundance of caution’’.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg told Mohamed to ‘‘keep building’’, saying: ‘‘I’d love to meet you.’’ Along with an invitation to astronomy night at the White House next month, Mohamed has received invitations to drive Nasa’s Opportunity rover, tour MIT, and visit Google.
We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It’s what makes America great. President Barack Obama