14-year-old Ahmed Mohamed thought it would be fun to bring a home-made digital clock to school to show teachers. Unfortunately, the school panicked and called the police, thinking that the clock might be an "infernal machine" despite Ahmed's telling them "it's just a clock".
From The Dallas Morning News, Dallas Texas:
Ahmed Mohamed — who makes his own radios and repairs his own go-kart — hoped to impress his teachers when he brought a homemade clock to MacArthur High on Monday.
Instead, the school phoned police about Ahmed’s circuit-stuffed pencil case.
So the 14-year-old missed the student council meeting and took a trip in handcuffs to juvenile detention. His clock now sits in an evidence room. Police say they may yet charge him with making a hoax bomb — though they acknowledge he told everyone who would listen that it’s a clock.
The police refused to believe that the device was "just a clock". After all, why would anybody build a clock unless they had an ulterior motive?
Ahmed never claimed his device was anything but a clock, said police spokesman James McLellan. And police have no reason to think it was dangerous. But officers still didn’t believe Ahmed was giving them the whole story.
“We have no information that he claimed it was a bomb,” McLellan said. “He kept maintaining it was a clock, but there was no broader explanation.”
That's because there wasn't a broader explanation. Sometimes a clock is just a clock.
