Irving, Texas – The week started pretty rough to Ahmed Mohamed, 14, a MacArthur High School student at Irving, Texas, after a teacher thought he was carrying a bomb when he actually had elaborated from scratch a home made clock.

Ahmed, who is a Muslim, proudly claims that he builds his own radios and repair his own go-kart. He sleeps with a box of circuits boards at the feet of his bed and, while in Middle School, he belonged to the robotics club.

On September 13, Ahmed wired a circuit board to a power supply and a digital display, and strapped the resulting clock inside a pencil case, excited to show it to his engineering teacher. The next day, Ahmed teacher admired the clock, as it was more complex than anything Ahmed classmates have done. Despite how impressed the teacher was, he said to Ahmed “I would advise you not to show any other teachers.”

Ahmed-clock-arrest
IRVING, TX – SEPTEMBER 16: (L-R) Attorney Linda Moreno, Ahmed Ahmed Mohamed, and Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed address the media during a news conference on September 16, 2015 in Irving, Texas. Mohammed, 14, was detained after a high school teacher falsely concluded that a homemade clock he brought to class might be a bomb. The news converence, held outside the Mohammed family home, was hosted by the North Texas Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. (Photo by Ben Torres/Getty Images)

Later that day, Ahmed followed his engineering teacher’s advice and kept the clock in his bag.  But then, another teacher began to complain that something was beeping in class, so Ahmed showed her his ultimate invention. She asked him to give it to her as it looked like a bomb, but Ahmed refused to.

After that it just went all wrong. The police arrived and pulled Ahmed out of his sixth-period class, handcuffed, and then questioned him in a schoolroom full of police officers. His parents were not contacted and the cops kept telling him he was under arrest. He was then released, and got suspended from school for 3 days.

“We have no information that he claimed it was a bomb,” said police spokesman James McLellan. “He kept maintaining it was a clock, but there was no broader explanation.”

According to the authorities, the real concern was “what was this thing built for?” However, the real question here to make is, Why does this kid have to explain a clock?

#IStandWithAhmed

After the news were released, the young boy’s face was all over traditional and social media. He has received thousands of tweets and Facebook posts as support for what happened. The hashtags #IStandWithAhmed and #EngineersForAhmed were created by Twitter users from around the world and reached thousands of tweets about the event.

Moreover, President Barack Obama invited him to the White House and exalted his love for science. The US President posted on his Twitter account:

Leaders at Reddit and Twitter have offered him internships. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg invited him to visit the company’s headquarters. “Having the skill and ambition to build something cool should lead to applause, not arrest. The future belongs to people like Ahmed,” Zuckerberg posted on his social network.

Finally, Google executives have reserved a spot for Ahmed at their weekend science fair and MIT asked him to visit its campus.

Source: LA Times