A Texas teen gets arrested over a homemade digital clock. Social media erupts.
#IStandWithAhmed has been trending for hours on Twitter, with over 50,000 tweets exchanged so far, largely in support of the 14-year-old, who lives with his family in the Dallas suburbs.
Twitter screen capture
Here’s the story that has spread around the globe: High-school freshman Ahmed Mohamed was arrested Monday after bringing a homemade digital clock to MacArthur High. To make a long story short, a teacher at the Irving, Texas, school freaked out, thinking the clock looked more like a bomb, resulting in a call to police, reported the Dallas Morning News.
The youth was taken to a juvenile detention facility in handcuffs and has been suspended from school. Police reportedly may charge him with making a hoax bomb.
Ahmed, who is reported to be something of a technical genius, wanted to wow his teachers. It took him 20 minutes to rig up the clock, using only a circuit board and power supply hooked to a digital display. His engineering teacher was the first to see it, and — perhaps sensing trouble — advised him to keep it under wraps. But the gadget kept beeping.
The 14-year-old recounts what happened in a video interview with the Morning News:
Continue reading “Texas teen led away from school in handcuffs over clock invention”
