Irving 9th-grader arrested after taking homemade clock to school | Hacker News Reader

Irving 9th-grader arrested after taking homemade clock to school

dallasnews.com

84 pointsmsmithstubbs22 comments

I was impressed with some of the developments apparently taking place in American school systems:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-09-14/public-school-stude...

"In their zeal to crack down on guns and lock down the schools, these cheerleaders for police state tactics in the schools might also fail to mention the lucrative, multi-million dollar deals being cut with military contractors such as Taser International to equip these school cops with tasers, tanks, rifles and $100,000 shooting detection systems."

"Indeed, the transformation of hometown police departments into extensions of the military has been mirrored in the public schools, where school police have been gifted with high-powered M16 rifles, MRAP armored vehicles, grenade launchers, and other military gear. One Texas school district even boasts its own 12-member SWAT team."

"One SRO is accused of punching a 13-year-old student in the face for cutting the cafeteria line. That same cop put another student in a chokehold a week later, allegedly knocking the student unconscious and causing a brain injury. In Pennsylvania, a student was tased after ignoring an order to put his cell phone away."

That's a considerably better article than the usual ZeroHedge standard. The mentioned law review article is worthwhile as well.

You should be worried that even the police are so darn stupid that they do not understand that bombs are things made out of EXPLOSIVE MATERIAL, and not boxes with wires like you see in the movies. EXPLOSIVE MATERIALS are dangerous. So are the triggers that set them off because they are small containers of explosive that can be set off by an electric current.

Switches, on the other hand, are not dangerous unless they are attached to a blasting cap and other EXPLOSIVE MATERIAL. Neither are mobile phones (even though ALL MOBILE PHONE BATTERIES ARE MADE OF EXPLOSIVE MATERIAL) and neither are timing devices such as clocks. A clock is not even dangerous when it is attached to a switch, unless of course, a blasting cap and EXPLOSIVE MATERIAL is already attached.

Police and other personnel responsible for public safety, like teachers, cannot be allowed to wallow in ignorance living in a fantasy world. They must have some awareness of REAL THINGS so that they can recognize dangers. Why are these people not trained how to recognize EXPLOSIVE MATERIALS, triggers, blasting caps, etc.?

There are enough crazies out there know, also living in a fantasy world, that the people charged with public safety need to know how to distinguish REAL THREATS from Hollywood fantasy. I blame the incompetence and corruption of management, i.e. school boards, police commissioners, mayors, etc.

I appreciate the need in this case to state the obvious about the device, but let's also state the obvious about why the teacher, principal, and police did this: because he was a brown-skinned boy named Ahmed. Everyone involved should lose their jobs, but they won't.

Do you have access to a great deal more evidence on the subject than I do? Nothing I've seen makes a compelling case that the particular people involved were motivated by racial animus. At most, I've seen data showing that police as a group across the US act in detectably racist ways, but that's not the same thing...

Racism is nearly impossible to prove for any given incident, but it's important to look at the context in which Ahmed's arrest occurred: http://www.vox.com/2015/9/16/9336967/ahmed-mohamed-islamopho...

I'm aware of the context. I'm also aware that it's difficult to prove.

I agree there's ample reason for suspicion, but suspicion is not the same as the certainty I see so many people leveling.

I've recently had a reminder of that. Not long ago, in Oakland, a black man was in a car crash on a highway. He was being pursued by police. Something happened, and police shot him. OPD does not have a great reputation, so when they claimed he had been attempting to hijack a car and advanced on police with a gun, they weren't really believed. Protests formed, claiming the man had been unarmed and fleeing police. OPD had killed another black man because they're racist!

It wasn't long before video and more information was released. The man had hijacked a car, crashed it, and was trying to hijack another when police caught up to him. He was armed, and had advanced on the police with a gun. The whole obviously false story was true.

Moral of the story: just because an event seems to fit a narrative doesn't make it so.

If it's not the wires that are dangerous then why it's wires they always carefully cut on tv?

If anyone in the Irving area has a electronics company, offer this kid an after-school job.

It doesn't sound like his love for science/engineering/electronics has been significantly harmed, but we, as a society, need to keep encouraging kids in these areas, and not shitting all over their passion, no matter what their name, nationality, or race is. It is thoroughly disgusting that the authorities, both the teachers/school and the police, are ignorant enough to make this a story at all.

It's important that makers reach out to kids in this community to let them know it’s okay to be creative. It’s not right at all for kids to feel that they have to hide their engineering talent and keep it a secret.

The saddest thing from this article:

> He’s vowed never to take an invention to school again.

Apparently the dad should find his kid some new teachers who are smart enough to tell a clock from a bomb.

No, the school board should find them.

The school board is made up of the same teachers who aren't smart enough to tell the difference either, just with more seniority. They wouldn't hire anyone smarter then them, they might feel challenged, so how does that fix the problem?

As unjustified and horrible is this is, this is going to make a great college essay in for him in four years.

This might have to do with his dad more than the kid, the dad [1] might have been under radar for being involved in Sudan elections.

1.http://www.dallasobserver.com/news/why-mohamed-elhassan-the-... 2.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0vegPu2iaI

And that justifies (or even explains) what exactly, outside maybe that the police officer heard the name before? If anything, his father seems to be a man of peaceful methods.

Someone involved in the democratic process overseas definitely sounds like a threat to me.

"under the radar" means not detected by radar. Under surveillance, maybe.

If only the police department had access to say, a bomb squad. I'm sure the folks from the bomb squad could take a 5 minute look at this thing and say, "wow, no triggers or anything! Looks like we got a clock here!" But now, almost as if they know it's coming, the police have changed their story to, "well, it looks like it _could_ be a bomb, and uh, that's illegal too - so we're saving America here."

This kid should sue the police for trying to malign him in front of his schoolmates and for the "mental agony".

Top universities should be trying to win him from now

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