Nerdy 14 year old brings homemade clock to school and is arrested

[VMI77]

When I was about 10, a friend and I attempted to build a bazooka. Another friend's father worked for the JPL and this friend supplied us with solid propellant his father brought home from work. We used galvanized pipe pipe for the barrel and fastened a wooden pistol grip to it with pipe strap. We ended up doing something stupid with it at my friend's house and caused some property damage. His mother apparently called the police not realizing her son had anything to do with it.

A police officer showed up at my home holding the "bazooka." I was terrified. I wasn't handcuffed, arrested, or charged. I got in plenty of trouble at home and probably got a spanking but I don't really remember. I think my parents split the cost of repairing the property damage with my friend's mother but I don't really remember how that was worked out. And this was in urban California too, not rural Texas. Back then the police were still allowed to use common sense and actually did...though common sense had already started to atrophy in the schools. Same thing today would probably have ended in being cuffed, arrested, charged with something like manufacturing a destructive device or WMD, and national headlines.

Things have definitely changed, and as far as dealing with children and childhood stupidity go, NOT for the better.

[ScottDLS]

When I was about 10, a friend and I attempted to build a bazooka. Another friend's father worked for the JPL and this friend supplied us with solid propellant his father brought home from work. We used galvanized pipe pipe for the barrel and fastened a wooden pistol grip to it with pipe strap. We ended up doing something stupid with it at my friend's house and caused some property damage. His mother apparently called the police not realizing her son had anything to do with it.

A police officer showed up at my home holding the "bazooka." I was terrified. I wasn't handcuffed, arrested, or charged. I got in plenty of trouble at home and probably got a spanking but I don't really remember. I think my parents split the cost of repairing the property damage with my friend's mother but I don't really remember how that was worked out. And this was in urban California too, not rural Texas. Back then the police were still allowed to use common sense and actually did...though common sense had already started to atrophy in the schools. Same thing today would probably have ended in being cuffed, arrested, charged with something like manufacturing a destructive device or WMD, and national headlines.

Things have definitely changed, and as far as dealing with children and childhood stupidity go, NOT for the better.

When I was a kid in the late '70's, some local middle schoolers built a pipe bomb and set it off. They ended up getting hauled off from school by the Feds (FBI, not ATF I thinnk) and they were criminally charged with manufacturing a destructive device. I think they got a deferred prosecution plea deal due to being juveniles....but then again they actually DID build a bomb.

[VMI77]

When I was about 10, a friend and I attempted to build a bazooka. Another friend's father worked for the JPL and this friend supplied us with solid propellant his father brought home from work. We used galvanized pipe pipe for the barrel and fastened a wooden pistol grip to it with pipe strap. We ended up doing something stupid with it at my friend's house and caused some property damage. His mother apparently called the police not realizing her son had anything to do with it.

A police officer showed up at my home holding the "bazooka." I was terrified. I wasn't handcuffed, arrested, or charged. I got in plenty of trouble at home and probably got a spanking but I don't really remember. I think my parents split the cost of repairing the property damage with my friend's mother but I don't really remember how that was worked out. And this was in urban California too, not rural Texas. Back then the police were still allowed to use common sense and actually did...though common sense had already started to atrophy in the schools. Same thing today would probably have ended in being cuffed, arrested, charged with something like manufacturing a destructive device or WMD, and national headlines.

Things have definitely changed, and as far as dealing with children and childhood stupidity go, NOT for the better.

When I was a kid in the late '70's, some local middle schoolers built a pipe bomb and set it off. They ended up getting hauled off from school by the Feds (FBI, not ATF I thinnk) and they were criminally charged with manufacturing a destructive device. I think they got a deferred prosecution plea deal due to being juveniles....but then again they actually DID build a bomb.

What I did happened around 1965 and California was already rapidly changing for the worse. It's hard to judge the case you cite without knowing more and in what context it occurred. Some kids playing around on a farm, on their own property, no one hurt or injured....the arrest, charge, and prosecution seems excessive to me. Some kids in a populated area trying out a bomb with the intention of using one to blow something up or kill someone....different story. I think common sense and discretion are used a lot less now than they were in the past.

During the early 70s, in high school chemistry class, in Texas, a friend and I made some black powder and burned it to test it out. We were in the back of the room "experimenting" while class was in session. The smoke filled the entire room and the class had to be evacuated. It was treated as a mistake and we received no punishment whatsoever, not even a lecture by the teacher or the school principal.

[Taypo]

I think common sense and discretion are used a lot less now than they were in the past.

You're absolutely correct.

Had the father/mother had the common sense to understand that allowing that child to go to school with a suitcase of wires and circuit boards was a bad idea, this could have all been avoided.

[VMI77]

I think common sense and discretion are used a lot less now than they were in the past.

You're absolutely correct.

Had the father/mother had the common sense to understand that allowing that child to go to school with a suitcase of wires and circuit boards was a bad idea, this could have all been avoided.

I was talking about the authorities of course but I'll take your bait. It seems like you're expecting the parents to be smart enough to realize the authorities won't use common sense, or in fact that the authorities are actually often pretty stupid. Many people, even smart people, have been indoctrinated to believe that those in authority are in authority because they're smarter than everyone else, know what they're doing, and know what is best for everyone under their authority. In spite of the daily reality that confronts them, most people still believe it.

My first assumption, just playing the odds, would be that the parents aren't smart, because most people are pretty dumb. But turn it around and assume the parents are highly intelligent. So, being intelligent they know that what their son is taking to school is not dangerous, and not sharing my cynicism, they think people in authority are smart enough to realize this, thus not thinking it will be a problem. It seems to me that what you're asking of the parents isn't common sense, but cynicism.

Legally, it doesn't matter what "perceptions" are since he did nothing illegal, which means the arrest and charges are bogus. That's without the irrefutable fact others have pointed out: every single person in authority from the teacher to the police KNEW he had nothing dangerous as was demonstrated by the fact that they didn't take a single action that would be taken by anyone who saw a device they believed could be a bomb.

The teacher that didn't immediately evacuate the class and call the police either didn't believe he had a bomb in his classroom or is too stupid or too negligent to be a janitor, much less a teacher. Is that what you believe? The teacher was stupid or negligent? Then the police showed up....handled the possible bomb themselves.....were they stupid and negligent too? Should a LEO who believes he may be dealing with a bomb and handles it this way remain employed as a police officer?

While I don't think any common sense or discretion was in play here by the authorities I give them more credit than you do. The narrative they are advancing says they thought this kid brought a bomb to school but thinking he had a bomb did absolutely nothing to prevent the possible deaths of themselves and the children they were responsible for. I simply don't find that credible in the least, and if it's not credible, then they knew they were not in danger and their actions were purely punitive.

[Excaliber]

There is another possibility here:

The device was designed to look suspicious but be provably innocuous in order to generate the response it actually got from teachers and police who could be foreseen not to use common sense when confronted with a situation like that. It is certainly the sloppiest and ugliest simple function clock I've ever seen and hardly what I would call a triumph of junior engineering. A non genius could do much better with a few cheap parts from Radio Shack.

Following this hypothesis, the purpose would be to present a situation that could be exploited in the media as blatantly unfair treatment of an innocent boy based on "islamophobia". When you think about it, that's not as far out as it seems at first. It is entirely predictable that the media would react as it did, that enormous sympathy would be generated for the "victim," and that he would be given all kinds of opportunities he otherwise would have to have earned. The police description of passive-aggressive behavior by the student during his interview would support at least considering that his motives were not as entirely innocent as he presents them to be.

Would that scenario take an adult a cynical worldview and some thoughtful planning behind the whole deal? Sure, but it would be consistent with the level of sophistication we're seeing from radical islamists, who are media aware, highly manipulative and much better grounded in reality than many of what passes for leaders these days.

I have no idea if that was the case here or not, but from an investigative standpoint I would treat it as one of the lines of investigation that should be followed until it is either proven or disproven.

Even if that was what was really going on, a little common sense from the police would still have ended the situation quickly and without fanfare. The bomb squad would have been called and determined that the device was neither dangerous nor designed in a manner consistent with a trigger for explosives, and the police would have handed the kid back his "clock" and told him to have a nice day. Unfortunately, that didn't happen and that's why we're looking at the stinking mess this case has become today.

[jimlongley]

There is another possibility here:

The device was designed to look suspicious but be provably innocuous in order to generate the response it actually got from teachers and police who could be foreseen not to use common sense when confronted with a situation like that. It is certainly the sloppiest and ugliest simple function clock I've ever seen and hardly what I would call a triumph of junior engineering. A non genius could do much better with a few cheap parts from Radio Shack.

Following this hypothesis, the purpose would be to present a situation that could be exploited in the media as blatantly unfair treatment of an innocent boy based on "islamophobia". When you think about it, that's not as far out as it seems at first. It is entirely predictable that the media would react as it did, that enormous sympathy would be generated for the "victim," and that he would be given all kinds of opportunities he otherwise would have to have earned. The police description of passive-aggressive behavior by the student during his interview would support at least considering that his motives were not as entirely innocent as he presents them to be.

Would that scenario take an adult a cynical worldview and some thoughtful planning behind the whole deal? Sure, but it would be consistent with the level of sophistication we're seeing from radical islamists, who are media aware, highly manipulative and much better grounded in reality than many of what passes for leaders these days.

I have no idea if that was the case here or not, but from an investigative standpoint I would treat it as one of the lines of investigation that should be followed until it is either proven or disproven.

Even if that was what was really going on, a little common sense from the police would still have ended the situation quickly and without fanfare. The bomb squad would have been called and determined that the device was neither dangerous nor designed in a manner consistent with a trigger for explosives, and the police would have handed the kid back his "clock" and told him to have a nice day. Unfortunately, that didn't happen and that's why we're looking at the stinking mess this case has become today.

And here I thought I was being a cynic by thinking that maybe the really sloppy work on such a simple project was possibly a setup to trigger just what it triggered.

So it really is a bomb.

[mrvmax]

There is another possibility here:

The device was designed to look suspicious but be provably innocuous in order to generate the response it actually got from teachers and police who could be foreseen not to use common sense when confronted with a situation like that. It is certainly the sloppiest and ugliest simple function clock I've ever seen and hardly what I would call a triumph of junior engineering. A non genius could do much better with a few cheap parts from Radio Shack.

Following this hypothesis, the purpose would be to present a situation that could be exploited in the media as blatantly unfair treatment of an innocent boy based on "islamophobia". When you think about it, that's not as far out as it seems at first. It is entirely predictable that the media would react as it did, that enormous sympathy would be generated for the "victim," and that he would be given all kinds of opportunities he otherwise would have to have earned. The police description of passive-aggressive behavior by the student during his interview would support at least considering that his motives were not as entirely innocent as he presents them to be.

Would that scenario take an adult a cynical worldview and some thoughtful planning behind the whole deal? Sure, but it would be consistent with the level of sophistication we're seeing from radical islamists, who are media aware, highly manipulative and much better grounded in reality than many of what passes for leaders these days.

I have no idea if that was the case here or not, but from an investigative standpoint I would treat it as one of the lines of investigation that should be followed until it is either proven or disproven.

Even if that was what was really going on, a little common sense from the police would still have ended the situation quickly and without fanfare. The bomb squad would have been called and determined that the device was neither dangerous nor designed in a manner consistent with a trigger for explosives, and the police would have handed the kid back his "clock" and told him to have a nice day. Unfortunately, that didn't happen and that's why we're looking at the stinking mess this case has become today.

I think it was purposely built to look like it did and they were hoping for a certain response.
You guys can reminisce about all the things you used to do when you were kids but it is a different world than most of us grew up in. Should the school have had more common sense? Sure, but that is a tall order for our school system today. Then again, do you expect educators that discipline a kid for having a Pop Tart that looks like a gun know what a bomb looks like?

[Beiruty]

The boy won fame and respect and the Irving PD and ISD got shamed.

[jimlongley]

The boy won fame and respect and the Irving PD and ISD got shamed.

Fleeting fame and no respect at all. Yes, the school got shamed, but the police did what they should have, and after talking to a friend from Irving, I suspect even more so that this was a blatant setup.

[mrvmax]

My question is who builds a clock that looks like that and then carries it to school in a briefcase type container? is it really because of his name or because of the real threats we face in our society today?
I would be awful suspicious that it was intentionally built to look like a bomb. It sounds like there are some explosive experts here since there are a lot of people that can tell by the one or two pictures they have released that it was "obviously" not a bomb. Well, guess what? I was EOD in the 90's and I'm not so quick to make that call even though I was trained to render safe real IED's. You guys have no idea what other intelligence the PD had. When I was in the bomb squad we got briefings from the FBI on actual explosives that they were finding and general intelligence that the public had no way of knowing. Our society has changed and even my counterparts today in EOD have an entirely different job scope due to the proliferation of IED use from our enemies. Perhaps this design was real similar to real IED's they have seen and been briefed on. Perhaps they were just too PC to ignore it and now they realize they could have handled it better. What if they didn't scrutinize and it turned out to be real? There are too many what ifs to tell what was going on and make the calls from our keyboards yet we still do.

[mrvmax]

A former EOD tech I worked with posted this, you experts can brush up on your IED ID.
https://scontent-dfw1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hp ... e=569A8151

[JALLEN]

A former EOD tech I worked with posted this, you experts can brush up on your IED ID.
https://scontent-dfw1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hp ... e=569A8151

Very droll!

There is a huge difference between looking at pictures, and looking at actual devices sitting on the desk in front of you.

[EEllis]

A former EOD tech I worked with posted this, you experts can brush up on your IED ID.
https://scontent-dfw1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hp ... e=569A8151

Very droll!

There is a huge difference between looking at pictures, and looking at actual devices sitting on the desk in front of you.

I have to say I got a little chuckle out of that because all your comments were based off of you looking at a picture.

[baldeagle]

What I would like to know is what is the information that the family is refusing to allow the school to release? We don't have both sides of the story, but the verdict of those with agendas is quite clear.