Okay, this all kinds of levels of bullshit. This week in Dallas, a teenager was arrested for bringing a homemade clock to school. The kid made the clock because he is smart. He was arrested because he is brown.
Irving 9th-grader arrested after taking homemade clock to school: 'So you tried to make a bomb?'
14-year-old Ahmed Mohamed, a freshman at Irving MacArthur High, is the kind of kid who tinkers with electronics and makes his own radios and stuff. He's a nerd. Nothing wrong with that -- he's just one of those guys who would make a homemade clock and bring it to school to impress his engineering teacher.
His teacher was not so impressed. His English teacher was even less impressed. She confiscated the clock and informed the principal, who contacted the cops. Ahmed was pulled out class and interrogated by police officers. To them, the homemade clock, especially in the hands of a brown-skinned Muslim teen named "Mohamed," looked too much like a bomb.
They led Ahmed into a room where four other police officers waited. He said an officer he'd never seen before leaned back in his chair and remarked: "Yup. That's who I thought it was."
Ahmed felt suddenly conscious of his brown skin and his name — one of the most common in the Muslim religion. But the police kept him busy with questions.
The bell rang at least twice, he said, while the officers searched his belongings and questioned his intentions. The principal threatened to expel him if he didn't make a written statement, he said.
"They were like, 'So you tried to make a bomb?'" Ahmed said.
"I told them no, I was trying to make a clock."
"He said, 'It looks like a movie bomb to me.'"
"A movie bomb"? Is that an official assessment? Is this really grounds to put a kid in handcuffs?
Police say they may charge Ahmed with making a hoax bomb, even though he repeatedly told everyone it was a clock, and never pretended it was anything but a clock. But they can't seem to wrap their heads around why a kid would make such a thing. How about because he's a bright kid and maybe not everybody's into football?
Officers didn't file formal charges against the Ahmed and released him to his parents. But the Dallas chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations says Ahmed was targeted because of his religious and racial identity. They believe some of his rights may have been violated and have spoken to lawyers about his arrest.
More here: Irving ISD student detained for invention resembling bomb