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Comment by zeteo | Hacker News Reader

> Eyman was referring to a number of conspiracy theories that appeared on the Internet about his arrest. Most attest that the incident was a pre-planned plot [...]. Some of that skepticism stems from claims against Ahmed’s father [...] who has run for president of Sudan

I was completely outraged when I first heard this story, but then I read some of the legitimate criticism that the article glosses over. Basically it looks like he didn't build a clock, but repackaged an existing clock into a pencil box and had it go off during class. Here's the take from someone who went the full length with looking up the parts:

http://blogs.artvoice.com/techvoice/2015/09/17/reverse-engin...

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This is pretty much my takeaway too:

> Ahmed wasn’t accused of making a bomb – he was accused of making a look-alike, a hoax. And be honest with yourself, a big red digital display with a bunch of loose wires in a brief-case looking box is awful like a Hollywood-style representation of a bomb. Everyone jumped to play the race and religion cards and try and paint the teachers and police as idiots and bigots, but in my mind, they were probably acting responsibly and erring on the side of caution to protect the rest of their students, just in case. “This wouldn’t have happened if Ahmed were white,” they say. We’re supposed to be sensitive to school violence, but apparently religious and racial sensitivity trumps that. At least we have another clue about how the sensitivity and moral outrage pecking order lies.

What happened here is really clear, and it has nothing to do with this kid being named "Ahmed." He got in trouble because he made a look-alike bomb. Nobody thought it was a real bomb, but that's besides the point. Plenty of white kids get suspended from school for bringing in toy guns that are clearly, without debate, toys. Maybe "zero tolerance" for weapon look-alikes is a stupid policy, but it's a different sort of stupid policy than what people are attacking in this case.

For anyone who doubts this interpretation, here are the relevant district policy documents outlining the classification[1] of "weapons" (which includes "look-alike weapons" in the terminology of the district) and the penalty[2] (mandatory expulsion, as required by Texas state law).

[1] http://www.irvingisd.net/cms/lib010/TX01917973/Centricity/Do...

[2] http://pol.tasb.org/Policy/Download/367?filename=FOD(LEGAL)....

Does anyone think that the American media is some unbiased, objective actor that brings stories to the national attention on nothing more than journalistic merit?

Because if you do, you're either stoned or stupid. Remember that this happened in the middle of a news cycle about Donald Trump and other Republicans being islamophobic.

I'm willing to think that the kid and his father aren't deliberately gaming the media machine, but obviously nobody above that level is acting out of anything but self-interest.

He was arrested, not just suspended. It's fair to ask whether they would have avoided escalating that far for a white kid.

It's likewise reasonable to err on the side of caution when it comes to bomb threats, but the story didn't end there.

Bringing an imitation weapon into a school is a criminal offense in many places: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/02/06/virginia-boy-10-arreste....

I think that's really stupid and that people are too sensitive about school shootings, but that's an entirely different argument.

"Entirely different argument"? We weren't discussing whether the school reacted poorly?

People can be wrong that:

a) The school should have instantly made Ahmed a saint on seeing his device

while still being correct that:

b) This never should have escalated to arrest.

Both a) and b) speak to the question of whether the school reacted poorly.

These things don't happen in a vacuum. The school's overreaction was the result of social forces.

The question is: what social forces do we blame in this case? Paranoid gun hating liberals? Or bigoted Muslim-hating conservatives? The media cast blame solidly on the latter group. But I think the facts better support blaming the former group.

Considering the fact that the US has far, far more mass shootings at schools than any other developed nation (most have zero), I'd say the liberals aren't paranoid. They're just watching the news and have pesky souls that make them sad when a child is senselessly, preventably murdered.

I'd say that the dramatic overreactions of zero-tolerance policies in the wake of school shooting have less to do with liberalism or conservatism, and much, much more to do with bureaucratic cover-your-ass-ism, because if you DIDN'T ban nerf guns, what happens when a kid brings a gun disguised as a nerf gun to school?

Certainly the zero-tolerance policy of this and other districts cannot be effective, and certainly they aren't preventing any school shootings -- zero tolerance policies reached their apex in the years after columbine, but there are still shootings on a regular basis. So a liberal that pushes a zero-tolerance policy is certainly not doing it from the rational, evidence-based center of their kind soul.

I'm going to assume you're getting downvoted because you said "people are too sensitive about school shootings" which is genuinely one of the sickest things I've ever read on HN.

He assembled two broken clocks together into a $20 box he bought. He didn't make a clock, exactly, but he didn't claim to.

And it changes nothing. To claim that he was trying to make it look like a bomb for attention is absurd.

It does change things as the media (including the social media) has presented things much differently.

Why is it absurd?

Whether it's true or false is another issue (I don't claim to know his motivations) but absurd?

> And it changes nothing. To claim that he was trying to make it look like a bomb for attention is absurd.

What is more absurd: that a teenager violated a school rule to get attention, or that a whole bunch of school administrators and police officers couldn't tell an alarm clock apart from a bomb?

What's most absurd is that his parents weren't wise enough (optimistic theory) to tell their kid that this was a very shitty idea.

This is a case of parents using their child as a publicity stunt (pessimistic theory).

The administration knew it wasn't a bomb. If they actually thought it was a bomb, even slightly, they would have had a bomb drill. They have bomb drills for anonymous phone calls for shit's sake. They knew it was a hoax and he was attention seeking which is why he was sent to the office.

> The administration knew it wasn't a bomb. If they actually thought it was a bomb, even slightly, they would have had a bomb drill.

That may make unwarranted assumptions about competence of the particular officials involved. Though, I'd say that if they thought it was a bomb, then their reaction was just as bad as if they didn't, for a different set of reasons.

That's irrelevant to the question of Ahmed's intent

What's more absurd that he was suspended for either a silly prank, or for plugging an alarm clock with exposed wires and a transformer into an AC socket which went off during a class, refused to cooperate with the school administrators, and later then police or that Google invited him to the Science Fair for putting a radio shack clock in a box which put him in the same club as other attendees like 17 year old Olivia Hallisey who got her spot for inventing a new faster, cheaper, and more reliable method of detecting Ebola http://googleforeducation.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/spotlight-o... or 13 year old Pranav Sivakumar who designed a machine learning algorithm that can detect Quasars through gravitational lensing which is now also being used to discover dark matter clusters http://googleforeducation.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/spotlight-o...?

Why is it so absurd? Because young people never do stupid things for attention? Was the school/police reaction over the top? Yes, for sure. Is the counter-reaction given to this kid in an effort to appear to appear to be on the side of goodness and rationality equally silly? Absolutely.

Because he didn't, period.

There are only two scenarios here that are tenable. Either he built a real bomb and brought it to school or he didn't build a real bomb.

If he didn't build a real bomb then the question becomes whether or not he attempted to scare people with a hoax bomb.

Unquestionably he didn't build a real bomb. Moreover, he didn't attempt to scare anyone with a fake bomb either. He brought a clock to school. He insisted to everyone that it was a clock. And he tried to avoid showing it to people.

That is not a hoax bomb in any sense of the word. If you don't have a hoax bomb and you don't have a real bomb then what do you have? Panic, and bigotry. Nothing more.

That is not how zero-tolerance policies are enforced in any school district.

> That is not how zero-tolerance policies are enforced in any school district.

Zero-tolerance policies are their own can of worms, but neither such policies nor any possible explanation of their enforcement explains the characterizations made after the fact by both school and law enforcement officials regarding the supposed "hoax bomb".

http://www.irvingisd.net/cms/lib010/TX01917973/Centricity/Do...

http://pol.tasb.org/Policy/Download/367?filename=FOD(LEGAL)....

These are the relevant documents. They are short enough to read them in less than 5 minutes. Can you tell me what the legally-mandated punishment is for bringing a non-weapon that resembles a weapon onto school grounds is?

It's easy to bikeshed about "characterizations", but there are legally no other ways the school district could have reacted on the day they were making decisions.

> Can you tell me what the legally-mandated punishment is for bringing a non-weapon that resembles a weapon onto school grounds is?

Can you explain the relevance since -- except in the sense that every digital clock in existence resembles a fictional weapon through the Hollywood tendency to depict bombs as digital clock displays -- the actual device in question does not in any meaningful sense resemble a weapon.

Do you think that matters at all? Literally everyone involved in this chain of decisions, from the teacher to the school principal to the superindendent, are only interested in covering their own ass. They don't need to think that the device in question resembles a weapon, they just need to think that ANYONE will at ANY TIME think that it does and penalize them for not acting as the law mandates.

Further, you answer your own question.

Remember that chicken fingers qualify as weapons under these policies.

What you're saying is against everything else that has been said. He showed it to every teacher that day until he was sent to the office. He plugged it into the wall so it would beep and get the teacher's attention. I am sure he said "hey guys it's just a clock!!!" with a shit eating grin knowing people's reactions to it was that it didn't look like "just a clock". I know because I was that kid at his age too and did shit like this (but with pictures of things like looked like a penis but TOTALLY WEREN'T GUYZ!!!).

But see, I could make something that I called a "clock", and tell people that it was a "clock", and still deliberately make it seem like I've got a bomb that I'm trying to pass off as a clock. The "trying to avoid showing it to people" kind of fits this idea.

Ah yes, the classic "check out this extremely cunning and subtle genius who is too dumb to build his own clock right."

Can we at least admit to ourselves that what he built would have passed for a bomb in a movie? Because while I agree the whole thing was handled poorly, it's not completely implausible to think that was a bomb.

Can we at least admit to ourselves that what he built would have passed for a bomb in a movie?

Can we at least admit that movies have approximately zero relevance to reality?

Even in movies, bombs usually have this thing known as "explosives" attached to them somewhere.

> Can we at least admit to ourselves that what he built would have passed for a bomb in a movie?

In the same way that a person dressed in the black garb worn by stagehands, by theatrical convention, passes as invisible. The appearance of bombs in movies is an artistic convention designed to provide dramatic tension.

> Because while I agree the whole thing was handled poorly, it's not completely implausible to think that was a bomb.

The school action would be even more ludicrously inappropriate if they did think it was a bomb.

To be fair, it changes the narrative from "smart kid builds ingenious working electronic clock" to "tinkering kid disassembles clocks to make them (coincidentally or otherwise) look like Hollywood depictions of a bomb". The background context has the kid messing about with plenty of other electronic devices for fun, but it also has a politically-active father turning up at well-publicised Quran-burning events and claiming shock that the Quran was burned. It's not exactly beyond the realms of possibility that he might have seen the potential for his son's electronic experimentation to end in a suspension and similar barrage of publicity, even if the son himself is merely an innocuous hacker type with a fondness for electronics.

Obviously any suggestion of intent still doesn't excuse the way the police reportedly handled things, or make Dawkins' attitude any less ridiculous.

>It's not exactly beyond the realms of possibility that he might have seen the potential for his son's electronic experimentation to end in a suspension and similar barrage of publicity.

Even if Ahmed was being a delinquent, I can in no way understand how anyone can think this is true. Unless the father encouraged his son to take a bomb lookalike to school, how the hell could he, a 14 year old boy, have foreseen the act as attracting as much attention as it has? How could anyone?

I don't see how that changes the story at all.

Whether or not he built the clock, the important thing is that he didn't build a bomb and was arrested by police officers who (then and now) fully admitted that he had committed no crime whatsoever.

Yea, but I can see through how much of a poser he is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFvB1I7uMGg

> the important thing is that he didn't build a bomb and was arrested by police officers

He was arrested on suspicion of perpetrating a bomb hoax. There may be a legitimate purpose for putting an existing clock inside a box where it can't be seen, and having it go off during class. But I'm less outraged if it turns out that law enforcement's only failure was missing out on that legitimate purpose when called to make a judgment on the spot.

It changes it dramatically. People are saying he got in trouble because of racist school administration being overzealous. The reality, according to the best information we have, is that he was intentionally antagonizing his teachers for attention. What he made is a few blocks of play-doh away from looking like a bomb. A teacher sent him to the office for making what undeniably looks like a hoax bomb. Zero effort went into this - it wasn't a science project, it wasn't inventive, it wasn't something worth showing off other than "hehe this looks like a bomb!".

The way he was treated by officers was absolutely shitty, but it wasn't any different than how officers treat people all day, every day, at schools all across America.

> The way he was treated by officers was absolutely shitty, but it wasn't any different than how officers treat people all day, every day, at schools all across America.

If Ahmed Mohamed's case leads to a change in this area, I think a lot is won.

The city leadership and police department leadership being 100% unapologetic and unwavering in their actions says otherwise.

If a kid was waving around a plastic gun that was painted black, would it be the same social justice concern?

He wasn't arrested for building a bomb, but for building a fake bomb. I don't think you should arrest a kid for that even if it did, it's not worth it.

However, it's not insane to think he was trying to cause an incident. The hypothesis goes: he wanted to get a teacher to believe he had a bomb so that he could claim religious profiling and racism. If that is what happened, that technically is a crime because the bomb was a hoax bomb.

Why would someone think he was trying to trick a teacher into thinking it was a bomb. It's a weird thing to bring to school. It's not like he actually make a clock on his own. Clocks are not super impressive, but it's a good beginner amateur electronics project. But he didn't even do that. His comments in the media don't really show any understanding of electronics.

Why was he so proud of pulling apart an off the shelf alarm clock and nailing it into a pencil case? He brought it out in each class of the day for no reason. He set it to go off in class for some reason.

And then when he was questioned about it, he was reportedly very tight lipped. He could have been nervous being in trouble. Or he could have been trying to create a scandal.

Mark Cuban said when he called the kid that someone else was feeding him answers. His sister got in trouble in a bomb scare situation at the same school district.

And then the family goes on a media tour meeting with mass murdering Islamic leaders--al-Bashir. And suddenly the family is moving to Qatar.

His Father was also involved in a high profile media circus regarding a Koran burning.

It's not clear that it was a purposeful stunt. But I don't think it requires conspiracy level thinking to believe it was.

Bringing an alarm clock to school and NOT setting it to go off during class is more suspicious to me.

"Conspiracy theory" most of the time means exactly "legitimate criticism that the article/TV/politician wants to gloss over".

Uh, no, it mostly means "insane hypothesis which no amount of evidence can disprove but which some people will believe in regardless", such as the conspiracy theory that Jews perpetrated 9/11 or that vaccines cause autism or that Obama was born in Kenya.

No, usually it means "something with no shred of legitimacy or basis in facts that supporters will nonetheless defend with vitriol".

But nice try.

Unfortunately for your snark, the facts are against you.

Fact 1: Ahmed claimed to have "invented" this clock in a video. He did not. It is proven without a doubt to be a radio shack clock's guts stuffed in a case.

Fact 2: The clock was powered via AC, meaning no beeping (one thing all accounts report on) unless it was plugged in. Which it did. Who plugs in an alarm clock in English class?

Fact 3: His engineering teacher, the guy he supposedly brought it in to show, told him to leave it with him / not show it to other teachers. He did otherwise.

Fact 4: There is no legitimate evidence that this incident was based on race. Plenty of white kids getting kicked out of school for toy guns.

Fact 5: His dad is a known political agitator, most famously for a koran-burning incident in Florida a while back.

Taken alone, any one of these things don't really mean much. Added up, there aren't many scenarios that look good for him.

I really don't see why this is so outlandish to consider - it takes knowledge that school admins are generally idiots, combined with a misguided desire to either highlight a legitimate problem (said idiocy or islamophobia, take your pick), or plain old fashioned fame seeking.

Not exactly rare mindsets.

> Fact 1: Ahmed claimed to have "invented" this clock in a video. He did not. It is proven without a doubt to be a radio shack clock's guts stuffed in a case.

So what? That's irrelevant to the reason people are interested in this case. (Nobody cares what exactly he built, people care that he was arrested despite it being completely harmless.)

> Fact 2: The clock was powered via AC, meaning no beeping (one thing all accounts report on) unless it was plugged in. Which it did. Who plugs in an alarm clock in English class?

There's a 9-volt battery cable clearly visible in every photo of the clock.

> Fact 3: His engineering teacher, the guy he supposedly brought it in to show, told him to leave it with him / not show it to other teachers. He did otherwise.

He earlier set the alarm, then forgot that it was set.

> Fact 4: There is no legitimate evidence that this incident was based on race. Plenty of white kids getting kicked out of school for toy guns.

I'll grant you that one, but regardless of the kid's race the reaction of the school staff and police was utterly unacceptable. That is the important thing about this story.

> Fact 5: His dad is a known political agitator, most famously for a koran-burning incident in Florida a while back.

So what?

> Taken alone, any one of these things don't really mean much. Added up, there aren't many scenarios that look good for him.

No, this is at best irrelevant stuff ("he didn't really build a clock!") and at worst conspiracy theory ("his dad is a political agitator!") stuff.

I had no clue there were so many conspiracy theories in play around this simple story so soon after it broke, nor that so many people on HackerNews would be conspiracy theorists, or I probably wouldn't have posted in this thread at all.

Because seriously, this is ridiculous.

The reason he was arrested was due to possession of a hoax bomb, not a misidentified not-bomb. That first thing is against school and state rules all on its own. After it was determined more or less that there was no intent to make something that looked like a bomb, he was released.

And as to lying about it being an invention: "Goes to character, your honor"

The 9V battery is responsible for maintaining settings in case of a power outage - I've got a clock similar to (but much newer than) that one on my nightstand - it does not power the device on its own.

He disregarded his eng. teacher's instructions.

If the "important thing" is that the police/teachers overreacted (which isn't in question.. zero tolerance is dumb), then why is the media, the goddamn president, and half of this thread trying to make it a race/islamophobia issue?

There's a 9-volt battery cable clearly visible in every photo of the clock.

Many/most plug-in digital alarm clocks use a 9-volt battery to keep time in the event of a power failure, but the battery can't light the display. Some clocks will still sound their scheduled alarm if the battery is connected but AC power is not.

The volatility of this thread is pretty nuts, with posts rapidly alternating between gray and black with every reload, so this will be my only post. I just wanted to point out a common commercial alarm clock design element.

> Fact 1: Ahmed claimed to have "invented" this clock in a video.

Which he did. He invented his particular clock arrangement. Not clocks in general... he's like... 3000 years too late on that front. Yes, it wasn't a complex project... but he's 17, who cares. Has no relevance to the subsequent school or police action.

> Fact 2: [...] Who plugs in an alarm clock in English class?

Teenagers, ones showing off their stuff to friends in particular. Has no relevance to the subsequent school or police action.

> Fact 3: [...] He did otherwise.

Because teenagers always listen to teachers, right? Worst case - confiscate it until the end of the day, maybe a detention. Has no relevance to the subsequent school or police action.

> Fact 4: There is no legitimate evidence that this incident was based on race. Plenty of white kids getting kicked out of school for toy guns.

Well... the police statements at the time were certainly racially ill-advised, but I'll give you this one under extreme charity. If you don't think that being brown skinned and named Ahmed Mohamed had anything to do with the over-reaction then I have a bridge to sell you. This is pretty obvious from you "legitimate evidence" dog whistle... as there's plenty of circumstantial and social evidence, but I doubt you'd call that "legitimate".

So far you're 1 for 4 here, not doing well.

> Fact 5: His dad is a known political agitator

Literally has nothing to do with Ahmed. So.. again has no relevance to the subsequent school or police action.

For being "against me" the facts you provide are pretty junk.

. as there's plenty of circumstantial and social evidence,

In which case you should share it with everyone else. I'm flat out saying there isn't any, other than a meme and confirmation bias.

I'm just going to re-reply to this since it's 8 hours later: not one poster in this thread was able to bring up a single shred of evidence that supported the idea Ahmed's treatment was due to his race or religion, or indeed due to anything other than the same nonsense zero-tolerance policies we're all familiar with.

I conclude that this idea exists purely as a media-created fantasy. "Racism exists, therefore that's what happened in this case.".

No, most people just give up on arguing with repeatedly debunked conspiracy theorists.

You're being treated like 911 Truth people. Rightfully ignored. Just because you're too dumb to work it out you're claiming victory.

So, case-modding.

That's an art form as well.

Especially for high-school kids who are getting started in tech

But not usually worthy of a White House invitation.

Neither would actually building a clock from scratch have been, usually.

The White House invitation was a direct counter to the negative overreaction of local officials, and a means of sending a message to other tinkerers -- and other local officials -- that the kind of reaction that occurred was not acceptable.

The one thing I don't understand is how it went off in class. Did he plug it in? Do classrooms all have plugs for laptops now or did he have to situate himself near one? Alternatively, did he use the battery backup? Wouldn't that mean he set the alarm for during class when it was plugged in and then unplugged it?

From the pictures this type of clock has a 9v battery for when the power goes off, not enough power to drive the display but enough to trigger the alarm. This would also explain why (maybe) he didn't realize it would go off during class.

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