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Obama Invites Texas Teen To White House After "Bomb" Clock Incident At School
The Grim Reefer writes: In a followup to this morning's story about the arrest of 14-year-old Ahmed Mohamed for bringing a homemade clock to school that was mistaken for a bomb, President Obama has invited the teen to the White House via Twitter. The President tweeted: "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." The Irving Independent School District in Irving, Texas sent an email to parents about the incident asking students to: "immediately report any suspicious items and / or suspicious behavior."
will the tsa / SS let him take the device in?
Now, if there is any good chance to smuggle a bomb into the white house, this is it.
I wonder if they're going to use this as "proof" that Obama "supports Muslim terrorists"
while
Where's the gofundme? After being punished so badly for doing everything right, I think the wealthier geeks in the world could have 4 years of college paid for in a few days.
From the original story, the kid vowed... note, *VOWED*... to never bring another invention to school again.
Admittedly the vow was probably made prematurely, but people who are of the sort to make vows in the first place are not the sort to break them simply because their circumstances might change.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
This is "tell a grownup" territory vs the schools helping teach teenagers (which need guidance, just like some of us adults need from time to time) on what is appropriate or not. This will obviously be a trigger story for people in the tech community that feel sensitive to this issue or raw because of bullying they received and why some of us have trouble trusting school judgement as grown men and women.
I just wish they handled this privately with the parents without dragging the liason officer into the mix, the local police, etc.. Judgement call made wrong way clearly.
And really. If the threat was actually real, or realistically perceived that way, we should have heard of the evacuation on the news yesterday.
So let me get this straight, this kid is being arrested and Trump is leading the polls?
They don't need to smear his name with silly stuff like that, IMO. The man is a liar, he has broken his promises to us, and his primary accomplishments have been an expansion of the power of the government.
This nice gesture does not make up for his abuse of power against his people.
http://news.slashdot.org/story/99/04/25/1438249/voices-from-the-hellmouth
/thread
nerd rage is the funniest rage.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
What no push for teacher education? If there is nothing that looks like explosives there is no reason to think its a bomb. Of course this might make teachers look stupid and Obama doesn't want to offend the teachers union.
I don't want to do a sig now
Not because I don't want them to learn about evolution
Not because I think Jeebuz thinks the road to hell is paved with Global warming or that that allow gay kids in school.
It would be because School administrators are stupid reactionary fuckwads who can't tell the difference between a circuit board and an IED, because little children get arrested for sexual assault for kissing another child, because now that police are patrolling the schools, causing little kids getting arrested for resisting arrest and assault felonies and a million other stupid things.
You cannot build intelligent adults from the hopelessly stupid school teachers and administrators who apparently orgasm when they destroy a child's future.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
He doesn't quite look a Native American.
As the last linked article points out, rather than being contrite about the unwarranted treatment of Akmed Mohamed, the Irving Independent School District is doubling down. In addition to reporting "suspicious" activity (mentioned in TFS) the letter from Principal Daniel Cummings to parents included this gem:
I recommend using this opportunity to talk with your child about the Student Code of Conduct and specifically not bringing items to school that are prohibited.
Nice posturing. So, was the item he brought to school actually prohibited? Or is this just innuendo?
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
George W. Bush has been out of office for nearly seven years. Time to let go of the hate and move on.
It's a clock, not a bomb. I thought we already established that.
while
I bet every kid who ever took an electronics class in high-school made a digital clock. Why is it that nobody including teachers immediately thought OMG Terrorists!! back then? Because we became a nation of pussies. Scared of everything except the thing we should fear the most..
Yes. Have we already forgotten the Boston lightbright scare?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Boston_bomb_scare
No, literally, good move Obama. Doesn't make up for all the other embarrassments & injustices, and there are many. But at least there's a line... at least being arrested for dumb shit, just this once, gets you a presidential apology. "I made a clock." "We think it's a bomb. Is it a bomb?" "No." "We think you wanted us to think it was a bomb." "But it's patently not a bomb." "Don't bother telling us it's not a bomb... that's exactly what you want us to think!" "I do want you to think that!" "Well then why did you build this bomb-looking bomb then?"
And that's just to get on the plane.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
It's a "not a" bomb!
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
The Irving Independent School District in Irving, Texas sent an email to parents about the incident asking students to: "immediately report any suspicious items and / or suspicious behavior."
"Hello, Office? I'd like to report that the principle is acting more moronic than normal....I think he's a replicant."
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Seriously, would you want to learn electronics, chemistry, physics, or comp sci in a country which might just decide to lock you up for doing your homework?!?!?!
What do you think will happen when he tries to take this past the TSA at the airport?
The TSA will inspect it, confirm that it has no explosives, and then send him on his way.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Only because chemistry class was that afternoon.
There has been, eh?
Then why has this last year had FEWER police deaths by shooting than any others for years?
Why, in fact, has Obama's presidency had fewer police deaths than his predecessors since the 1970s?
What kind of war is it, that is being done so ineffectually?
The thick-skinned, trollfag part of me instantly suggests detecting a subtle jab at the other involved party.
... asking to: "immediately report any suspicious items and / or suspicious behavior."
My actual conscious thought says it's really just damage control about the overall "message" in the air. And while it may be a bit ham-fisted, I can't deny the positive direction it attempts.
> The Irving Independent School District sent an email
Yeah, here's the thing, you've just proven the Powers That Be have shitty judgement and we need to resort to our own. Now people will hesitate to report. I admit that the hesitation is A Bad Thing, but you've encouraged it. And I use that phrasing because I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt. I'm generously assuming you're not a lot of kneejerky fuckwits that leap all over the brown kid with an eastern name.
Perhaps there is a nice grant that they have that they shouldn't?
The real, legitimate president who actually won the election invented the internet.
Also, he invented the strategy of applying different rules in each voting precinct in order to exclude voters in precincts that favored your opponent.
Whoops - cut-and-paste typo.
The actual link is here.
The tabulated data is correct, it's just the link points to the house roll-call instead of the Senate.
Good catch - thanks for the heads up.
There's stupidity, there's arrogance, and there's stuff you should really be escorted out of public service for...
I hope somebody gets fired out of this... No apologies...
Or on the other hand I look forward to 2-3 days of lame attempts to somehow justify this...
Shall see...
"Don't fear death... fear not living..." -me
The terrorists win when we let fear control our decision making like in this case. It is an unfortunate legacy of 9/11.
I see you saying what he should do.
What should the adults in a position of authority do differently? Did you pay no attention to their actual statements and comments? If this was "stupid stuff" should we, the rest of society, blow it off, and do nothing, or should we actively consider what happened and why it was such a problem?
Oh wait, no, we won't pay no attention to the actual parties with responsibilities here, the ones who have a duty. Just the kid. Because kids bringing stuff to school is so wrong we should just strip them all naked before allowing them on the bus, of course, then we'll have to charge them with child porn for being naked.
You don't handcuff and perp walk kids for a 'misunderstanding'. Everything up to that point was fine (except for the little bit of forgetting to move people out of harm's way should this have been an actual weapon).
The subsequent arrest and persecution of the kid is flat out paranoid insanity.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
He needs to take his toy home and grow up a bit...
Maybe so, but nowhere near as much as the faculty and cops need to grow up. They didn't even let him contact his family before questioning, and you're making excuses for them.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The war is being waged with cell phone cameras and is going very well.
The police have resorted to putting cameras on themselves to defend. Not realizing that was the desired outcome. Morons that they are.
They are not primarily being killed, they are being denied their right to kill with impunity.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I remember being in fifth grade in Arlington, Texas, after being born in San Antonio.
Luckily, given that I loved to make science things and collect meteorites and stuff, I wasn't Being A Kid While Black.
Seattle stands with Ahmed.
And this Texan is sad to see the reactions of so-called adults there.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
of course they are:
"the terrorist in chief is already bringing him to the white house. after that he'll introduce him to his terrorist buddies"
http://www.freerepublic.com/fo...
"It's a PR conspiracy between the White House and the CAIR"
also note that while the article admits its a stupid incident on the public officials' parts, but the readers/commenters have already jumped to "CAIR/Obama put the kid up to it, and the town fell for the trap"
http://www.redstate.com/2015/0...
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
they have since fixed that oversight
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
I have a former roommate who still responds to emails that I wrote 15 years as if I sent them yesterday, still hateful from what happened back then and unwilling to let go because that's all he has now. He's trapped in a prison of his own making, unwilling to ask for help because he doesn't want to be free.
there is no war on police.
merely a growing movement that wants them held accountable for when they fuck up (particularly if someone gets hurt/killed as a result), and a growing suspicion that they have been covering up past fuckups by writing false reports, as several have been caught doing in recent news.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Absolutely not.
He wasn't doing anything dangerous looking. People overreacted. Fine, I can forgive that. Go ahead and determine that the kid didn't have a bomb, apologize for the misunderstanding, and make an end of it. That didn't happen. The kid was interrogated, arrested, fingerprinted, suspended for 3 days, and might be charged with an actual crime, and he did nothing wrong.
It's time to grow up and accept that punishing people who didn't do anything wrong is never acceptable.
In fact, it wasn't a dangerous-looking thing. If it was, the teacher would not have confiscated it, put it in a desk drawer, and continued teaching the class. If it had actually scared the blank out of the teacher, the teacher would have left it where it was, gotten the school evacuated, and had the bomb squad handle it.
People like the teachers and police officers need to learn what appropriate behavior is. The behavior was inappropriate no matter what they thought.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
That's insane. The thugs steal from the poor more often than they steal from the rich, mainly because they are close by and usually unarmed. There are thugs out there who will kill you for a few dollars. They don't care who you are or how much money you have.
And far, far more blacks are killed by other blacks than by law enforcement, despite what the mainstream media would have you believe.
I know a lot of cops. There are rich ones, poor ones, black ones, white ones, and everything in between. Most are salt of the Earth and a few shouldn't be trusted with any authority at all. They're just like everybody else trying to do a job and make it to retirement.
Cell phones can be used as bomb triggers.
Cell phones look like cell phones which can be used as bomb triggers.
Cell phones sometimes go off in class and make weird sounds, ie. ring tones.
Do you know what I expect to happen? The teacher asking the owner of the phone to turn it off.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
Absolutely. George W. and I have moved on. Other people, not so much.
I guess being "held accountable" means shooting some innocent cop at a gas station?
Florida as the most entertaining state.
And if police were ever to detain you for hours because you had a Raspberry Pi in your backpack, you'd shit on the floor in fury and start looking for a lawyer.
The whole thing might not be so bad if it wasn't for the official statements from the Irving, Texas mayor, the principal of the school and the police chief. They're still pretending that there was some danger to the students. There was not.
And they STILL suspended the kid from school for three days. Fucking Texas is a shithole. When they're not executing innocent people, they're running around thinking that the U.S. Military is invading them and when they're not Jade Helming themselves into a frenzy, they're banning science and history in the classroom if it doesn't conform to Christian teaching. Now, when a kid builds a clock and takes it to school, they arrest him because they "wanted a broader explanation of its purpose". Basically, the kid said, "This is a clock" and they said, "Yeah, but what's it FOR? And what kinda name is "Ahmed" anyway?"
I'm just surprised they didn't fire a warning shot into the kid's head.
You are welcome on my lawn.
wait.. so the president is asking him to bring his "bomb-like" device to him? that means he's going to bring his "bomb-like" device on a plane... i can't wait to hear about how he got arrested at the TSA checkpoint for trying to bring a bomb on a plane!
Whats the count of killed officers so far this year?
21?
Something like that?
Meanwhile the number of citizens killed by police so far this year is more than 500.
Again: there is no war on police.
And if there is, it is a pittance compared to the War being waged by police upon the citizenry.
(and no i dont actually believe that 'that' war exists either)
read, and become educated. you could surely use it.
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
^bingo
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Instead, police groups and their advocates are claiming that the mere act of criticizing a government entity is akin to declaring war on it, and that therefore, police critics are culpable every time a police officer is murdered. (And given the way they ignore and abuse statistics, those critics are also apparently culpable for a lot of murders that never happened.) They’re essentially saying that exercising constitutional rights and participating in democracy are in and of themselves acts of violence. And in many cases, this is coming from the very people that the government empowers to use actual violence.
That is something worth worrying about.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
unless it is an unarmed black, then it's just an accident.
it's been more than seven yet idiots still like to use that as an excuse to screw over people like this kid.
he was a dangerous looking kid. that's OK, someone that thinks a electronics project automatically looks suspicious can't be expected to get too many things correct.
Zero tolerance policy
Zero tolerance of what, precisely? I though zero tolerance was meant to be zero tolerance of breaking rules. Not zero tolerance of random shit made up on the spot by mad people.
Last I checked, clocks weren't against the school rules.
Plus who builds a two foot by two foot portable clock that looks like a bomb?
It only looks like a bomb because oooh scary circuit boards!!1111one1!oneONE1!
SJW n. One who posts facts.
since you are obviously too clueless to know what one looks like in the first place.
It's washington's terrorism paranoia (or convenient excuse to clobber liberty) that created this situation in the first place, and now the president is trying to make up for it with some publicity stunt? A solution fixes the problem. It does not brush it under the rug and hopes it goes away.
With your logic, every science fair in every school in the whole U.S. should end in arrests and threats to prosecute for "making a hoax bomb", right?
I agree with you. not only that but he gave the teacher a smart-ass answer "well it doesn't look like a bomb to me" is not a responsible answer. Our president is a total jackass for even talking to him he knew damn well it looked like a bomb. The teacher he originally showed it to even told him not to show it to anyone else. That kids was a jerk. If he had said he already showed it to whatever the teachers names was, it would never gotten out of hand like it did. And this is the age where kids mass murder other kids because they pissed them off. So i dont blame the reaction of the teachers i seen the picture it looked just like a suitcase bomb it didn't look like an alarm clock at all.
Jack of all trades,master of none
Christ you're a boot licking apologist.
They didn't think it was a bomb and never did. If they actually did think it was a bomb, they'd have called in bomb disposal experts. What they did do was insist it was a hoax bomb. See the word hoax?
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Are you seriously advocating that anything that COULD theoretically work as a weapon - IF YOU ADD MORE PARTS TO IT - should be grounds for being slapped in handcuffs, paraded past your friends and interrogated without the presence of a lawyer or, in the case of a minor, your parents?
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
And no, all the boy said was that he build a clock. A clock. You know? That thing that tells you the time.
Honi soit qui mal y pense. If you have any problem with people building clocks, then you have a deeply troubled mind.
What should the adults in a position of authority do differently?
Be brave and don't panic
I don't want my kids to ever be at a school you are a teacher or a principal. I don't want to live ever in a district you have any saying in police proceedings. You have a deeply twisted mind just looking for trouble.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb...
How many kids have been murdered in school in the last 10 years again?
Jack of all trades,master of none
And if police were ever to detain you for hours because you had a Raspberry Pi in your backpack, you'd shit on the floor in fury and start looking for a lawyer.
Nope. If they truly believe that my little raspberry pi was a danger and choose to detain me until they figure out it isn't, so be it. Last time I went though a TSA checkpoint with one, they didn't even bat an eye, though I expected all the wires and the bread board attached would draw some attention.
But before you go off half cocked on this, remember that this device really DID look dangerous and like what you'd imagine a bomb trigger would be, that raspberry pi obviously is a commercial device. This kid produced a jumble of clock parts and soldered on wires that he plugged into the wall and it made noises. It looked (and likely was) dangerous.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Perhaps you remember news stories of a town in Texas (Irving, in fact) that had to pass local legislation to prohibit sharia courts that were settling various business and personal disputes of Muslims.
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
If you take things in context here, there is a political, religious and PR battle waging in this city between the government and Muslims. The Muslims lost round 1, rightly so, by not be allowed to set up their own government systems in parallel to those of the United States or State of Texas. They won round 2 today, with Obama officially taking the side of the youth.
I was modded down in a comment to a previous story, but I will say at least this much again. No one has seen the device. I tried finding pictures, but to my knowledge none have been posted. It was in a small metal briefcase like box (for holding pencils) with a steel cable around it. Since no one here actually knows the physical appearance or context of how it was presented and perceived, none of us can make any kind of informed opinion on whether or not teachers were justified in having any concerns of what he brought to school.
His father has had run ins of various sorts with the local governments regarding Islam. It did not say what those were (if they were related to the Sharia law deal or what).
Better known as 318230.
If he is, then I look forward to the news article proclaiming: "Kid arrested in school for having a possible bomb detonator in class. His cell phone was confiscated and the child has been sent to juvenile detention."
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
So a 20-year low on cop killings is now a war?
Perhaps you mean McCarthy, as in Senator Joe, not MacArthur, as in General Douglas. MacArthur was notably in favor of bombs. Also, the school administrator is the principal, not principle. Perhaps your school should be reported for something.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
Been watching a few too many movies... Next you'll say that bombs are identifiable by the blinking red light.
That's lovely how it fits the approved narrative.
I'm sure the occasional beefy guy named Guido in Chicago actually played violin too. That means the Mob was just a myth.
There are actual pictures of the clock floating around the interwebs. You might consider acquiring access to the information superhighway so that you can view these pictures.
There was no "disassembled alarm clock with wires soldered to it." There was a home-made circuit board, connected by ribbon cables to a small battery and digital display. There was no taken-apart alarm clock with drama-department wires attached to road flares, or any such nonsense. There was no Wile. E. Coyote alarm clock contraption. There was no part of the device that looked like explosives.
The teacher who claims to have "thought" it looked like a bomb picked it up and walked off with it, and sent the student to the office... without evacuating anybody. If the teacher has an IQ above 65, then I'm gonna call bull-pucky on having thought it actually looked like a bomb. If the teacher is a former special-ed student living the dream, OK, I can believe the story, and maybe it is just a "training issue."
I don't know if you noticed, but there's been a war on law enforcement recently.
Seems I missed it, since the number of police officers being killed is 13% lower than last year. And if you figure that there are around 765,000 sworn police officers at the state and local level and, so far this year, there are about 26 police officers killed (or about 0.003%), it's not much of a war.
Thank you...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I strongly advise looking for the lawyer before resorting to defecating on the floor.
While there are numerous troubling details in this story, Texas is a shithole. It was a digital clock. I have no trouble believing that Officer Billy-Bob and Mayor Christian Crusader have trouble understanding the "broader... purpose" of a digital clock. If it was a world clock with 3 time zones and 24 hour time, he'd still be in the interrogation room.
"Does this mean you can blow up a bomb in three different places at once? In different parts of the world? Holy Smokes Y'all!"
Maybe if you phrased the situation more like, "you ever wonder how you can know if the Dunkin Donuts is open, without even driving down there to check?"
Maybe somebody could bribe the County Medical Examiner to explain clocks to them.
He'll be back in jail next week when they find his metric laser caliper.
No. but if a student shows up with something that looks like it could set off a bomb that he built himself out of old alarm clock parts with wires soldered onto it and somebody gets the idea that it might be intended to be used that way, you have to take the treat seriously until you are sure the device and the kid are not a threat. Sorry, but that's the world we live in.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
The President tweeted: "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."
The President then added, "Just don't go looking for your father or I'll blast your ass with a Hellfire from a drone."
Wir sind geboren, um frei zu sein - Rio Reiser
No, I didn't say that.
But if a student brings something to school that raises suspicions that it COULD be intended for harm, you have to take the necessary steps to secure the student and the school from the possible threat. The stupid part here is that this device looks like something straight out of a Hollywood B movie used to trigger a bomb. What do you expect the school and police to do? Pat him on the back and say "Good job there Jonny, way to think outside the box"!
Then AFTER the suspicious device is examined it turns out that it is fully capable of triggering a bomb by all appearances, isn't it prudent to make sure that wasn't the intent? And don't tell me you'd just take the kid's explanation at face value and let him go.... You and I know that's not the world we live in and haven't since Columbine way back in the 70's.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Have you heard of Columbine?
I don't know what world you live in, but in schools today you have to take ANY hint of troubled youth seriously. Here you have an eccentric kid, with a possible bomb trigger device he build himself, that looks all the world like what you'd expect from a Hollywood B movie bomb trigger, who shows up in class, plugs the thing in and then lies about stuff when specifically asked and you don't think the administration at the school isn't going to react? They better react to this kind of thing...
Sorry but it's the world we live in and Irving Texas is in this world.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
A 150 in 1 electronic kit, while it COULD trigger a bomb with that relay, doesn't look like a bomb trigger. What this kid made LOOKED like what you'd see in a Hollywood B movie as a bomb trigger... Authorities reacted to what they saw, and I'm not so sure I would want them doing anything differently.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Yea, and never cut the red wire to disarm it...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
My problem with the situation, is that the teachers didn't respond appropriately for EITHER. If it's a ...
bomb - evacuate school, call PD and FD don't touch or in any way fuck with the bomb.
clock - send kid on his merry way.
something I don't understand - confiscate the item, harass the child and send him to the police department in handcuffs(if they make them that small)
Never claimed this device looked like a bomb, but it does look like a bomb trigger. It is obviously home made and resembles something you'd see in a Hollywood movie representing a bomb trigger. Further, given the kid's description of the device it easily could be used as a bomb trigger..
So somebody thought it might BE a bomb trigger and reacted as if it was.... How's that a problem? In today's day and age, it sure seems reasonable to me to assume it's a bomb trigger until you can establish otherwise, which involves investigating the device's builder. Sorry but it's the age we live in..
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
There were lots of terrorists involved in this incident. The terrified child vowed never to bring another invention to school.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Going the White House would be cool and all, but what would really help the situation is if the President could force the police and administrators to publicly and in person apologize to the boy. That would hopefully reduce over reactions in the future.
"In a followup to this morning's story about the arrest of 14-year-old Ahmed Mohamed for bringing a homemade clock to school that was mistaken for a bomb"
It wasn't mistaken for a bomb. The teachers are so afraid of getting fired that they won't make a judgement call but immediately report the incident back up to senior management.
Zero tolerance of anything that disrupts school. Maybe you haven't noticed but there has been a rash of school arrests of preteens (meaning cops are being called at any disturbance), pre-teen kids threatened with expulsion by making a gun with their fingers, elementary school kids being threatened with expulsion for a "paper gun" (imagine a tic-tac-toe grid with a corner square missing), wearing an NRA shirt, and a whole host of other sad situations if you want to search for such things.
Let's not forget that schools have been targeted as well so teachers, administrators, and guards are already very sensitive.
As for the clock, no clocks aren't against school rules, but dude, come on now, that was the shittiest clock I've seen in a long time. That wasn't something analog, or even remotely looked like a clock. It could easily be confused as a bomb by a a school worker who has to be on the look out for such things because once again WHO BUILDS A CLOCK IN A BRIEFCASE? It had giant numbers, a large circuit board, wires EVERYWHERE. Seriously, teach that dude to cut some wire and solder.
I'm not saying what they did was the right thing. They over-reacted. But again WHO BUILDS A CLOCK IN A BRIEFCASE? It's like someone building a telescope on to a rifle stock for portability and stability.
Everyone has to be cognizant of the date and times we live in and there are just things we can't do now. I took a bayonet to school to show my friends. No particular reason other that's where and when I could show it to them. Certainly can't do that now.
So yes, they over reacted. But he acted stupidly as well. Again, time and place.
A war on bad law enforcement is not a bad thing. But law enforcement has unions, thus an attack on an incompetent is seen like an attack on all of them.
This thing he built looks for all the world like a device that could trigger a bomb,
It also looks like something could not trigger a bomb. Innocent until proven guilty and all that.
Agree. The cops should have figured out there was no problem in about a minute. Schools are too caught up in paranoia these days.
No, they thought it was a hoax, and were trying to get the kid to admit he was trying to scare people. They knew it was not a bomb and was not ever going to be a bomb, it just happened to look a bit like a bomb if you've watched too many bad movies. If this thing could have been turned into a bomb, then any clock radio could have been also; arrest anyone bringing a clock radio to school. Arrest the science professors too, lots of dangerous stuff in their class rooms.
They asked the kid what it was, he said it was a clock, it clearly was a clock with even cursory examination. It only looked like a bomb if you were paranoid (it was far too small for one). They had all the information they needed to decide to tell the kid to put it away and go back to class.
Lesson learned. Stick to the test and don't think outside the box. If we ever need any thinking done in this country then we can always offshore it.
But everything looks like a bomb trigger if you're paranoid. If you're smoking and are caught with matches in your pocket then it's time for the perp walk. Carrying around a soldering iron means you're a potential bombmaker. We can't teach engineering or electronics in any schools because all of them will be perp walked out of class for learning about such dangerous magical items (this being Texas after all).
And the thing is, they DID establish without a doubt that this device was NOT a bomb trigger. And they still gave him the perp walk. This is a problem!
I saw the picture. It does not look dangerous at all. It's a tiny box that tells time. The photo was misleading since it looks like a larger briefcase or equipment box but when you look closer it's not very big at all.
If it actually did look dangerous to the teacher then the class would have been evacuated.
The real problem was that because this was a smart kid he was automatically treated as a trouble maker.
It does not look like a bomb. Nobody panicked over it. No one was evacuated. What we have are all the anti-Islamic blowhards deciding to play catch up and damage control by giving excuses on behalf of the stupid school and police officials.
But it did not look like a bomb trigger. Sure, it had a suitcase like box, but a small box the size of a textbook. He said it was a clock, and it could have been easily demonstrated to be just a clock. All it had were electronics, and electronics should not be scary except in medieval states where such things look like magic. If you showed up with this device on the set of some cheap ass Syfy show, they'd turn you away and ask for a more realistic looking bomb. Yes, it COULD have worked as a bomb trigger, but if you searched every student and classroom you'd probably find hundreds of things that could have worked as a bomb trigger. Good thing Radio Shack is out of business otherwise law enforcement in Texas would be raiding them on suspicion of aiding and abetting mad bombers. Cancel the science fair, that paper mache volcano might go off.
They also determined before arresting him and leaving school that they had no case and they knew he was not a danger; they only did the perp walk to shame and scare him. That's the only reason for taking a kid on a perp walk. The police had to save face, make it look like they were spending the tax dollars wisely, and get a pat on the back from the rabidly paranoid mayor of that town.
How can you apologize for those bozos?
Texas is in its own world.
There are actual pictures of the clock floating around the interwebs. You might consider acquiring access to the information superhighway so that you can view these pictures.
There was no "disassembled alarm clock with wires soldered to it." There was a home-made circuit board, connected by ribbon cables to a small battery and digital display. There was no taken-apart alarm clock with drama-department wires attached to road flares, or any such nonsense. There was no Wile. E. Coyote alarm clock contraption. There was no part of the device that looked like explosives.
The teacher who claims to have "thought" it looked like a bomb picked it up and walked off with it, and sent the student to the office... without evacuating anybody. If the teacher has an IQ above 65, then I'm gonna call bull-pucky on having thought it actually looked like a bomb. If the teacher is a former special-ed student living the dream, OK, I can believe the story, and maybe it is just a "training issue."
Here is a picture of the clock, just so we know what we are discussing:
http://www.24hmontreal.canoe.c...
You say there is a "home-made circuit board" there, can you point it out to me? The clock he "invented" are just the innards of a production alarm clock mounted in a different case. If you look at the picture, there is a standard alarm clock cord, poorly spliced with electrical tape (presumably he had to cut the cord where it went through the case) connected to a small transformer. The transformer output is connected to a production PCB, which appears to be the logic board and LED display driver for the clock. That board is connected with 2 ribbon cables to another board, which is edge-on to the camera so it is difficult to see what is on it. It looks like this is probably an input board.
Here is what makes this appear to be just the innards of a mass-produced clock:
-None of the solder joints appear to be hand-done, they all have the look of a factory solder job. Something that is done in a reflow oven, not on a workbench.
-Production PCBs: He didn't make these PCBs, they were made in a factory. Yes, I know there are discrete LED display driver boards that you can buy, but that isn't what the main board appears to be, as the board appears to handle several different functions.
-There doesn't appear to be any home-brew technology in the device, no perf boards, no wire wrap, etc.
-The battery backup - this is something that is almost all production alarm clocks but would probably be implemented differently in a homebrew device (if implemented at all). If he designed this from scratch AND wanted to put a battery in it, he would have made the whole thing battery powered, there would be no reason to have an AC transformer.
-Screw marks on the LED. There are four mounting holes for the LED display but only two of them have screws. The other two show marks where larger screws (or plastic pegs) used to be, like this display was taken out of an existing device.
-The edge-on board appears to have the PCB traces that underlie membrane switches. The four grouped together are probably the clock/hour/minute/alarm switches with a single snooze? switch on the end where the power wires enter from the main board.
- The way the ribbon cables and power connect the 2 boards together makes it hard to mount them in his case. If this was designed for this case those boards would either have longer cables between them to allow for their position in the case.
Yes, it's possible that the kid designed a pair of custom PCBs, had them screened and shipped, assembled them and soldered them in the reflow oven in his room (instead of the soldering iron shown in the press pictures) and then stuffed them into his pencil case, but all the evidence points to this being the contents of a simpl
Enigma
The endless abuse, stupidity, waste, and misery is why Trump is leading the polls.
Ironically, those are all perfect descriptions of Trump's personality, attitude, and business acumen to date.
Why on EARTH does anything think he'd be a good leader? The only thing he has ever been good at is fucking over everyone else (including his OWN employees, shareholders, and investors, with multiple bankruptcies) to get ahead personally. Well, declaring bankruptcy to fuck over the "shareholders" and employees of the US isn't going to work...
Smart motivated kids like this become terrorists when you alienate them from your society for doing something they are proud of... like showing off their cool, benign project.
I love the police chief's refusal to admit any mistake as well:
'“We live in an age where you can’t take things like that to school,” he said. “Of course we’ve seen across our country horrific things happen, so we have to err on the side of caution.”'
Well heck, let's just stop going to school.
Idiots.
Fucking morons. Who the fuck builds a real bomb and brings it into class and shows it off to everyone?
If the kid was a real terrorist then the first anyone would have seen of his bomb would be the shrapnel blasting its way through their eyeballs.
Except phones really can be used to trigger bombs. That's one of the things the movies gets right. You just attach another phone to the bomb, and wire it up/program it right to set off the bomb once it receives the right call/text, and BAM! now you have a remote trigger that can work almost anywhere courtesy of the cell phone network.
One problem. Your explanation for what a cell phone bomb trigger looks like in order to attack a criticism that you watch too many movies, sounds just like you got it from a movie or just have absolutely no clue what you're talking about.
He built a digital clock. It looks just like the one I built in electronics class when I was in high school. Only somebody who has seen way too many cheesy movies thinks that digital clock = bomb. I agree that cops might be stupid enough. It could be a bomb trigger. All that was missing was a detonator. Oh wait, the teacher's cell phone could be a bomb trigger too if you added a detonator. Cell phones are often used as bomb triggers. Why didn't the cops haul the teacher off in cuffs too?
Towards preventing this kind of shenanigans and more closely scrutinizing any possible policies. But by all means...
Quack, quack.
When a black man kills another black man, everyone expects he will be sent to jail, including other black men. When a cop kills a man, black or white, he's unlikely to even lose his job, much less go to jail. That's what gets people pissed off.
Get it now?
These "professional educators" are the morons to whom you are entrusting your children. They are so dense they cannot tell a geeky kid with a clock from a terrorist ... or from a kid who chews his pop tarts into the "wrong" shape ...
What makes you think these flunkies are smarter and wiser than you are and are better-qualified than you are to raise and educate your kids?????
It's a VERY recent perversion of human history that parents hand their kids over to government to be raised and educated; it's a byproduct of the industrial revolution when society (and wealthy industrialists) wanted a huge number of interchangeable worker "cogs" for their industrial manufacturing systems. When Ford or GM needs an unlimited supply of people who are all equally trained who can be plugged-into a spot on an assembly line to "insert tab A into slot B" over and over again as products slide by on a conveyor belt, the brick-and-mortar palaces of mediocrity we have created are PERFECT.
Unfortunately, our obsolete government-run schools have given in to the inevitable fate of all things tied to government (and therefore tied to politicians); They are now intimately tied to political activists and agendas which they value far more than objective instruction. Most of the teachers in the US are unionized, and therefore part of the most-energetic wing of the Democrat coalition (remember all the teachers going wild in Madison, WI?) with administrators elected using lots of teacher union money, and lawyers (also mostly left-of-center) driving a hyper-sensitive response to every grievance group with a megaphone. This is how we went from schools in the 1950s where no student had a clue about the politics of their teachers to schools today where kids have been taught to sing songs praising Barack Obama.
Want your kids to be propagandized morons with super-high self esteem? Put them in government schools.
Want your kids to have functional brains? Get them out!
But they ARE sure that it is not a threat.
Now they are charging him with making a HOAX bomb.
He is quite literally being charged with NOT making a bomb and saying that it is NOT a bomb.
Are exposed wires a felony now? Is that the world you WANT to live in?
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
It wasn't A CLOCK IN A BRIEFCASE. It was a small pencil case. See picture here http://www.thisnext.com/item/A.... To be fair, the picture from the cops doesn't give much scale. It is in fact the perfect case for a small electronic project. Also, why does A CLOCK IN A BRIEFCASE frighten you so much?
"immediately report any suspicious items and / or suspicious behavior." - Because the last time, it worked so well - no persons were harmed by the insidious contraption ...
F'ing paranoid @ssholes ... US people who aren't killed by US companies' health-degrading food are taken down and jailed ... and you wonder why the Chinese (and just about any other country on this earth) are kicking your asses in the workplace ...
For God's sake, NO.
14 year old kids in Texas do not, in general, build bombs with electronic triggers (in fact, can you find any evidence of it ever happening, ever?). Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.
'Circuit board==bomb' is the result of fucking idiotic fear mongering, right wing propaganda and islamaphobia since 9/11.
There was ABSOLUTELY NO REASON to think this kid had tried to make a bomb. If his teachers were doing their jobs, they would have known him. They would have known he tinkered in electronics. He should have brought it in to show and tell and got a fucking medal.
Grow up. Be realistic. Stop being scared.
I never said they thought it was a bomb.. They though it was a BOMB TRIGGER you ninny...
No, they thought it was a bomb hoax. No one but you thought it's a real bomb trigger.
Both building a bomb and building a bomb trigger are illegal you know....
So, watches and cellphones are illegal? Or, is it just things that go from a current source to a controlled explosion (e.g. low explosives) illegal? Such as these:
http://www.amazon.com/Generic-...
When you make shit up, be specific!
SJW n. One who posts facts.
but dude, come on now, that was the shittiest clock I've seen in a long time.
Christ Alive, man! The kid's 14. Give him a break. I'll bet you weren't making things that looked like they'd been created with the full weight of Chinese mass production when you were 14.
That wasn't something analog, or even remotely looked like a clock.
lolwut? It was made from a clock radio. You know, those rather common digital clocks. Which have digits. You know?
WHO BUILDS A CLOCK IN A BRIEFCASE?
A 14 year old who's not so hot on the mechanical side of things? It's a decent enough case, though I think it's actually smaller than you think given some of the other pictures.
It had giant numbers, a large circuit board, wires EVERYWHERE.
So that looks like just about any 14 yr old's project ever.
Seriously, teach that dude to cut some wire and solder.
Yes of course. Neatness becomes important for large projects. But he's 14. The only 14 year olds I've seen who made neat projects (remembering my time in school) were the anally neat ones who made really really simple projects because they were more concerned about neatness than making anything.
I'm not saying what they did was the right thing. They over-reacted. But again WHO BUILDS A CLOCK IN A BRIEFCASE?
Go and look at the pictures. There's a US plug for scale. That makes it the world's tiniest briefcase, for micro-briefs. And besides, its a nice good cuboidal box. Perfect for someone who doesn't have a home workshop to make something else.
So yes, they over reacted. But he acted stupidly as well.
If by acted stupidly, you mean: he failed to consider ways that insane and power mad adults could go completely mad and over-react to something obviously harmless, then yeah, he was stupid.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
He probably just put it in the aluminium case to help carry it but that made it look like the sort of thing bad guys mock up in movies. Of course it didn't look like a real terrorist bomb. They look like vending machines, telephones, etc.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Uh...
A watch is a decent bomb trigger. A cellphone is an *amazing* bomb trigger, since it's literally dial-a-boom. Better arrest all the kids that have any of these; never know what they might be planning.
Don't just stand there, get that other dog!
They may wipe it down for an explosives test and then let him take it anyway.
I've taken all sorts of electronics in planes, many bare circuit boards in static shield bags, and lithium polymer batteries that actually look like bombs on the X-ray with wires sticking out. The most they do is use their explosive detector, just like they do with people's laptop computers.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
By that measure my cell phone is a trigger. Actually, cell phones are very popular bomb triggers. But we're not slapping every kid with a cellphone in handcuffs. Or every kid with a Casio watch (the venerable Casio F14 watch that's been sold since the 1980s is a popular trigger for IEDs). Do we cuff any kid who comes into school wearing a Casio F14?
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Well put. I guess the teacher was afraid that other people might be afraid it was a bomb. That's what the police were afraid of. From what I understand, they didn't call the bomb squad, and they didn't arrest him for possessing a bomb, they arrested him for possessing a "hoax bomb". No-one was actually afraid it was a bomb. It wasn't a dangerous-looking thing. It was, perhaps, a kind of thing that looked like it might look dangerous to someone else, if there is such a kind of thing.
So you admit an alarm clock could be used to trigger a bomb. Worse, it could also be used to wake someone up on time to set that bomb. Frankly, I find your cavalier attitude unfathomable.
Shoes! What about shoes? There are people that tried to use shoes to blow up a plane! Ban all shoes.
And don't look up the fact that mines were made to look like toys, especially to target children.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
I'm kinda impressed. On one hand, the kid is getting some intense positive reinforcement. On the other, the officials who screwed him are shamed without anyone having to say a single negative thing about them.
Oh yes it was, I've seen the pictures. The kid actually built something that COULD have triggered an explosive device out of an alarm clock.
I have 4 devices on my desk right now that could do the same thing. And I am sitting at an average desk in an average office, with stock standard office equipment on my desk. Are you going to arrest me for our contract with Dell, Cisco and Samsung?
It was about 6" by 10". It was built in a pencil case.
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
As Client Eastwood once said, "A man gotta know his limitations."
"invited the teen to the White House via Twitter" should link directly to a tweet
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
I agree with GP. I don't want a hysterical liar like you running anything I'm close to.
The kid didn't show it off in English class. The kid showed it off to his engineering teacher. It alarmed during English class, and that's when the asshole English teacher saw it. What did the kid lie about? Except when under duress, his statements seem consistent with being a kid who fiddles around with electronics and doesn't see anything wrong with making something that's not anything like a weapon.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
It doesn't frighten me. I'm not even going to go into a detailed reply because you're not looking for one. Again, time and place and now is not the time to bring something that can be easily confused with something else.
Is it unreasonable that a kid could bring a bomb to a school? No. Is is reasonable? Well, not really. But the way the culture is now, scared, nosy, and some people generally concerned but generally just wanting to get on TV, all it takes is ONE person to over-react and public service HAS to kick in. Because if they don't, news services, TV commentators, and politicians are going to crucify everyone.
So what would have happened 15 years ago is completely different from what happened today. Also fourteen year olds while still fourteen, are worlds more sophisticated than they were 15 years ago as well. I'm not placing the blame on him for what happened, but come on, he isn't completely blameless. He should have known better and people asking with are "straight" face and hands up in the air "Whut? He just brought a clock to school?" know better as well.
I've replied to the other points and I'll just say again "Everyone acted stupidly, including him. He should have known better."
Anyone saying "It's just a clock" know they are being ridiculous. Things don't happen in a vacuum. Time and place. This isn't 20 years ago and all of the pundits saying "I was this kids 20, 30, 40 years ago" know this as well.
Yeah, 30 years ago things were different. I had full run of the school office & computers because I maintained them. Now do you think some kid could just sit down at a schools computer at any time of the day and just type with no one asking questions? I brought a bayonet to my elementary school. Kids carried knives.
It's a completely different time and place and EVERYONE, including you, knows that. Everyone over-reacted, but again, there is nothing wrong with saying the kid should have been more self-aware.
You have managed to encapsulate the entire reason I no longer live in the US into a few paragraphs, I only wish you were playing the devil's advocate, instead of being serious.
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
Again: there is no war on police.
And if there is, it is a pittance compared to the War being waged by police upon the citizenry.
There isn't a war but if there is then who cares? Sure, let them feel the wrath brought upon them!
First of all, just looking at police deaths is not enough to make a blanket statement that there is no increase in the mentality of targeting police for homicide. This source is assuming that because the statistics agree, then the motives do as well. It's easy and convenient that the numbers agree, therefore it must be true! Never mind what people are actually thinking.
Well, what else is true is that maybe, just maybe, we can hold both agendas. We need to hold people accountable that believe in targeting cops for blind justice AND ALSO our political agenda of holding cops accountable can be pursued. Let's not ignore the bad eggs that will only give police more cause to be afraid.
Of course it could be used as a bomb trigger. Do you have a cell phone that other people have seen? Ever been perp-walked out of the building wearing handcuffs because of it?
Investigating the device's builder involves asking questions in a non-hostile environment, and perhaps asking questions of other people (the kid's engineering teacher would have been a good one to talk to).
If you're going to believe what movies show about bombs, please try to disarm the next one you encounter. You do know which color wire to cut, don't you?
And, yes, it's regrettable that the age we live in includes people like you.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Okay, I'll try to use short words. Bomb triggers are not going to hurt people. Bomb triggers are not weapons. In order for one to be dangerous (sorry, long word), it has to be hooked up to something that goes boom really hard. That something would be called an "explosive", and there was no such thing in the case.
I certainly hope you never have a kid.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
It was a prime example of escalation. Teacher calls it in, next person in line thinks "Hey, if I don't DO SOMETHING, and something bad happens, I'm screwed. So for CYA's sake, I'm going to be serious about it." And each person along the chain then escalated the issue trying to cover their own ass, with images of every school tragedy floating in their head.
Granted, the odds of one of the R candidates supporting somebody named Ahmed Mohamed were already slim. Now that Obama has come out supporting this kid, I will be shocked if any of them to come to his defense. Just look at the comments on a GOP news site. This isn't even the most vitriolic one out there. Mind you, these are the same people who rant when "Obama's" TSA takes their favorite pocket knife, calling it government overreach and unamerican. And here they are saying things like "the dumb kid deserved it," or "maybe he was just testing our defenses for a real bomb." Really?! WTF!? No wonder everybody thinks we're a bunch of racist fucks.
Now why in tarnation wood a bunch a towelheads wanna kill that damn secret muslim? That just don't make no since.
Determining whether something could be a bomb by whether it looks like a bomb from a movie? Which means that if someone really did build a bomb but did not make it look like a movie bomb would be able to explode it. The authorities would then explain that the device did not look like a bomb because it did not beep and did not have blinking lights...
I would expect more from teachers and police officers.
I have two cellphones. It is possible (and has been done) to use a cellphone to trigger a bomb. ALERT ALERT!
I also have a car. It is possible (and has been done) to fill the car with explosives and then explode it when needed. You can even fit a small nuke in something like a lorry. I saw a lorry, it must be the terrorists! ALERT ALERT!
I have a piece of wire. It is possible to use the wire to strangle someone (if the wire is long enough) or to use it to ignite gasoline to cause a fire. ALERT ALERT!
I have a big book. A book can be used to bash someone in the head, potentially killing them. ALERT ALERT!
I have some cigarettes. You can extract nicotine from cigarettes and then use it to poison someone. ALERT ALERT!
I have clothes on. I can take off my T-shirt and use it to strangle someone. ALERT ALERT!
So, we need to arrest: all cellphone owners, all car drivers, all smokers and everyone who has a piece of wire or even a string and everyone wearing clothes.
This isn't 20 years ago and all of the pundits saying "I was this kids 20, 30, 40 years ago" know this as well.
Maybe I'm tilting at windmills but I refuse to ever accept this. The people in power were being idiotic, unreasonable and reactionary. Being a sign of the times or common place does not excuse it. All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing etc etc. So I will keep railing against idiocy where I see it.
And I wasn't this kid 20 years ago, I was *worse*.
It's a completely different time and place and EVERYONE, including you, knows that.
I don't think my old school has been evacuated due to a bomb scare since I left. We had terrorists in the 90s in London, you know.
Anyway, the kid probably thought it was a clock. Apparently we now require colossally nerdy 14 year olds to figure out how panicky and stupid "adults" might react to a project he brought in to show his engineering teacher.
Are "times different" now? Yes, in that now it's apparently OK for the teachers, headmaster and police to be utter fucking morons. And no, that's not OK and never will be.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
That's the world that people like you have made for us to live in, because you were scared shitless after 9/11, so much so that you were willing to throw everything else - sanity, rights and liberties, the free society itself - under the bus, all for the sake of your precious lives. Because terrorists.
It doesn't have to be that way.
No, it means being put on trial for manslaughter when they raid a wrong house and shoot and kill someone because some retard in blue thought that a cellphone looked like a gun, because there's no way a black person could hold anything else when interacting with police.
Cell phones used as bomb triggers ... have wires attached to them....
Yeah, like a USB cable...
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
the kid is part of Obama's muslim socialist secret army, and he is going to be interrogated as to how his plot failed.
probably going to end up gay married, too.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Zero tolerance policy
Zero tolerance of what, precisely? I though zero tolerance was meant to be zero tolerance of breaking rules. Not zero tolerance of random shit made up on the spot by mad people.
Last I checked, clocks weren't against the school rules.
Plus who builds a two foot by two foot portable clock that looks like a bomb?
It only looks like a bomb because oooh scary circuit boards!!1111one1!oneONE1!
zero tolerance of intelligent thought, a texas/rightwing principle for a long time now.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
I was cheering for the kid when I first heard the story about the 14 year old who "built" his own digital clock. I was curious as to the implementation. My first guess was an Arduino board, which would still be pretty cool.
Turns out it's nothing but an old alarm clock that he disassembled and put into his pencil box.
http://makezine.com/2015/09/16...
What a giant let-down. He's getting attention from the White House and tech companies for stealing someone's work and passing it off as his own?
Remember back when apple pie and baseball were quintessential "American" things? For some reason, this story seems to represent my impression of the new "America". A country that exudes fear and gives out awards to non-achievers.
P.S. ... looking for the slightest hint of "racism" from anyone, anywhere so that we can feel good about ourselves for condemning it.
I forgot the USA's new defining attribute
The kid was arrested for doing a "bomb hoax" and it's easy to see why the folks in charge might get the idea that's what he was doing.
Hindsight is 20/20 and yes they likely overreacted given what actually took place, but there are policies and procedures that MUST be followed and in the light of the post Columbine world it's easy to see why the procedures are so brain dead.
So nobody did anything wrong here.... Except perhaps for that 14 year old boy, but it's easy to explain HIS issue as being just naïve..
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Maybe I'm tilting at windmills but I refuse to ever accept this.
Then you're a fool. I don't mean that as an insult, but as a classical fool. Honestly, we were all worse 20 years ago. But school administrators had leeway and common sense but not the ACLU, 24 hour news, and every lawyer breathing down their neck.
Things have changed. I remember my dad bringing home a container of mercury and me bringing it to class. Think that could happen now? They would call the local HazMat team to the school and at least suspend if not expel me. I remember riding in the rear window shelf the family car. How fast do think every busybody on the road would call the police upon seeing that? Times have changed and schools have become terrifyingly politically correct and zero tolerance.
You do know how they found the device, right? It started beeping in class which alerted, startled, and frightened the class & staff. So why did he build a briefcase clock that had an alarm during class? I don't think he meant to but I also think he realized the severity and scope of his actions when he couldn't tell the authorities what it was & why he built it.
You can also say that it looks nothing like a bomb but you're wrong. It looks exactly like a suitcase bomb because his clock and a suitcase bomb look exactly alike except for the explosives because they use the exact same parts. Sure, you can say "BUT THERE WERE NO EXPLOSIVES" and you're right. There were none. But that's after examining it. On first glance, the school did the right thing.
Anyway, it looks like everyone falls into two camps. One camp thinks the authorities overreacted and the kid is 100% blameless. The other camp thinks the authorities overreacted and the kid is somewhat as fault as well. I think the kid should have known better in this day and age. This isn't 30 years ago and you know that as well.
The point is that, statistically speaking, there has been no discernible uptick in killings of police. 2014 was double 2013, but 2013 was the lowest EVER on record. In fact, depending on whose statistics you use, 2014 was lower than 2012. There is no war on cops.
The opposite is also true. There is no war on black people either. At least not in the sense of an increase of killings of unarmed black men. On the other hand, society hasn't systematically disadvantaged police for centuries and written drug laws that specifically target them for disproportionately higher minimum jail sentences. So it's kind of hard to compare.
The kid was arrested on suspicion of committing a "bomb hoax" which implies they suspected that the device he built was INTENDED to look like a bomb and that he was trying to act like it was a bomb.
So, by virtue of the fact the device looked the part of a hoax bomb, the authorities had to act per their process in these cases which is CALL THE POLICE, who acted in accordance to their process as well. None of this seems unreasonable if you do a bit of thinking about what each of the decision makers might have seen and what we all can imagine the process says they have to do in these cases.
I would like to remind EVERYBODY that we are only getting one side of this story and that comes from the kid and his parents. The school and the police have clearly indicated that there is more to this, but they are unable to discuss it because of their policy. In hindsight it sure looks like these people overreacted, but we don't have all the facts and there are some pretty plausible scenarios that might put this in a whole different light.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Ah... so it wasn't a bomb but a trigger. Looking at it from your perspective, I guess we should be glad they didn't call in Jack Bauer to torture the kid to find out where he hid the explosives. So in that case, Irving ISD and police did an outstanding job practicing restraint and common sense. Well done!!
Again, the only reason why what the kid did was even perceived as a bomb hoax (despite him doing everything to convince people otherwise) is because people like you have created the culture of paranoia and fear around all things Muslim.
"Diverse society will fail" --Putnam;
Let black Police deal with black Culprits;
http://www.boston.com/news/glo...
Casteism
Just to follow up, yet more numbers to further dispel this "war on police" myth:
www.npr.org/2015/09/17/441196546/is-there-a-war-on-police-the-statistics-say-no
In short: 2014 only looked bad because the previous year was the all time safest year for police. Ever.
(much like global warming deniers who try to claim arctic rebounded because 2013 had more ice than 2012....the lowest year ever recorded)
Quote:
The notion of growing "warfare" against police stems in part from a statistical jump in the number of law officers murdered — "feloniously killed," in the jargon of the FBI's numbers.
In 2014, the year of the Ferguson protests and increased media attention on police misconduct, 51 officers were killed nationwide. That was a jump from the 27 killed in 2013 and many took it as a sign of greater danger for police.
But even 2014 was statistically part of an ever decreasing trend and not really a departure from normal:
While the number of police officers killed on duty nearly doubled from 2013 to 2014, the increase is deceptive, says Seth Stoughton: 2013 had unusually few deaths. 2014 was comparable to other recent years and to the 10-year average.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Then you're a fool. I don't mean that as an insult, but as a classical fool.
Triumph of evil etc...
It started beeping in class which alerted, startled, and frightened the class & staff.
I don't see reference to frightening the class in any of the news reports.
It looks exactly like a suitcase bomb because his clock and a suitcase bomb look exactly alike except for the explosives because they use the exact same parts.
No it didn't look like a suitcase bomb.Firstly it wasn't suitcase sized, it was small. Look at the pictures (US plug is for scale). Secondly, when the IRA used to leave actual suitcase bombs around the place, the didn't have a big timer on the side letting everyone know it was a bomb. A suitcase bomb looks precisely like a suitcase. Sometimes they just used generic bags. Frankly that means every single kid's school bag actually looks more like a REAL suitcase bomb than the comedy clock.
The only place a bomb has a fuck-off massive clock face taking up half the side of the entire thing is in cartoons. Cartoons are not real. It did not look like any actual suitcase bomb.
On first glance, the school did the right thing.
No they didn't. If they actually thought it was a bomb they should have called bomb disposal, not confiscated it and stuck it in a desk and waited for the keystone kops to show up.
This isn't 30 years ago and you know that as well.
The fact that in this regard people act like galloping morons more than 30 years ago does not justify their behaviour.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Well, maybe because I live in a country where people are not as afraid of bombs or terrorists as people in the US, but I would expect a "bomb hoax" to involve 1) saying it's a bomb and 2) sounding serious about it. But it seems that Ahmed built a clock, said it's a clock and still got arrested for a "bomb hoax". What did he have to do to avoid being arrested? What if, say, I wanted to build a "prop bomb" and show it off? Would I be arrested even if I explicitly said that this was a prop bomb and not a real one?
In my country, a bomb hoax usually involves somebody calling the cops and saying that there is a bomb in some store or wherever (causing the special forces to evacuate the building and look for the bomb), while there is no such bomb.
Then again, the elevator in the building where I work started beeping for some reason, we joked that it was a bomb and talked how stupid it would be to build a bomb that beeps (or that maybe it's an alarm that the elevator is about to fall down). While being in said elevator. I guess this thing in the US would cause somebody to crap their pants.
An interesting link I found http://blogs.artvoice.com/techvoice/2015/09/17/reverse-engineering-ahmed-mohameds-clock-and-ourselves/#.VfzJZFgXd5A.twitter
Turns out the briefcase was smaller than I thought. It also turns out the "invented" clock was just a clock taken out of a plastic clock body and put in a case.
Anyways, calling the police was the right thing. They didn't call the bomb squad because they knew relatively quickly they were dealing with a hoax bomb. "Something is beeping. It's in a case. It's looks like a bomb. What is that?" "Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" "It's looking like a hoax bomb."
Surely, you can forgive them for not having "IRA bomb identification" classes until junior levels, right?
I can't find anywhere on this article... did he actually make this stupid clock or did he just disassemble a cots alarm clock and stick it the parts in a briefcase? It sounds like the latter, because why would you make it plug-in if you're making your own alarm clock to go in a brief case?
Anyways, calling the police was the right thing. They didn't call the bomb squad because they knew relatively quickly they were dealing with a hoax bomb.
Aah you are sure it was a hoax bomb then. No, they were not sure it was a hoax, they chose to act as if it was but they had no proof even though they tried to illegally coerce a confession. All they knew for sure was that they had something which they mistakenly thought looked like a bomb.
It's looks like a bomb.
Only bombs in really silly blockbusters and cartoons look like that. Apparently you think it's reasonable that grown-ass adults can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
We don't know what this young kid said or did because his parents have so far refused to release the school and the police to disclose this information. The school and police are bound by their policy not to discuss such matters without a release from his guardians, and the boy's parents have yet to allow it.
So, my point here is that there is possibly a valid reason for what happened to this boy and his "clock" but we are only getting one side of the story so it's really hard to know. I choose not to jump to conclusions either way, but there just MIGHT be a bit of fault to lay at this boy's feet.... It just MIGHT be that the authorities acted totally properly and within their policy...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101