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

[VMI77]

You and others keep saying it looks like a bomb or a hoax bomb...hooey. As the photo above shows it looks like, and is, a disassembled alarm clock. I get that scientific and technical knowledge in this country is at pretty pathetic levels, but one would pretty much have to be a technophobe or have a pretty lurid imagination to turn something so obviously prosaic into an explosive device. The idea of a hoax bomb is to make people think it's a bomb. That could have easily been accomplished by adding something that could be mistaken for an explosive charge. That "hoax bomb" wouldn't have hoaxed my grandma.

I guess we need a new law making it illegal to disassemble an alarm clock, or defining disassembled alarm clocks as "hoax bombs," otherwise, charging this kid with a crime like making a hoax bomb, and getting it to stick, may be a little difficult.

At this point, anyone who thinks it looks like a bomb is obviously an idiot because there's no big cannonball with a burning fuse in there to make it go boom? We're supposed to be impressed that little Ahmed is smart enough to buy a clock, dismantle a clock and put it back together again inside a suitcase, for no apparent reason, nefarious or otherwise?

The reason is plenty apparent, as I've previously stated....it just doesn't fit your desire to see it as something more nefarious than a not too smart kid seeking credit for something he didn't do. Occam's razor.

[Taypo]

You and others keep saying it looks like a bomb or a hoax bomb...hooey. As the photo above shows it looks like, and is, a disassembled alarm clock. I get that scientific and technical knowledge in this country is at pretty pathetic levels, but one would pretty much have to be a technophobe or have a pretty lurid imagination to turn something so obviously prosaic into an explosive device. The idea of a hoax bomb is to make people think it's a bomb. That could have easily been accomplished by adding something that could be mistaken for an explosive charge. That "hoax bomb" wouldn't have hoaxed my grandma.

I guess we need a new law making it illegal to disassemble an alarm clock, or defining disassembled alarm clocks as "hoax bombs," otherwise, charging this kid with a crime like making a hoax bomb, and getting it to stick, may be a little difficult.

At this point, anyone who thinks it looks like a bomb is obviously an idiot because there's no big cannonball with a burning fuse in there to make it go boom? We're supposed to be impressed that little Ahmed is smart enough to buy a clock, dismantle a clock and put it back together again inside a suitcase, for no apparent reason, nefarious or otherwise?

The reason is plenty apparent, as I've previously stated....it just doesn't fit your desire to see it as something more nefarious than a not too smart kid seeking credit for something he didn't do. Occam's razor.

We're going with "dumb kid is trying to look smart by reassembling a clock in a briefcase" rather than "Son of a Sudanese political activist with ties to CAIR brings a bomb with everything but the boom to school."

Got it.

[VMI77]

You and others keep saying it looks like a bomb or a hoax bomb...hooey. As the photo above shows it looks like, and is, a disassembled alarm clock. I get that scientific and technical knowledge in this country is at pretty pathetic levels, but one would pretty much have to be a technophobe or have a pretty lurid imagination to turn something so obviously prosaic into an explosive device. The idea of a hoax bomb is to make people think it's a bomb. That could have easily been accomplished by adding something that could be mistaken for an explosive charge. That "hoax bomb" wouldn't have hoaxed my grandma.

I guess we need a new law making it illegal to disassemble an alarm clock, or defining disassembled alarm clocks as "hoax bombs," otherwise, charging this kid with a crime like making a hoax bomb, and getting it to stick, may be a little difficult.

At this point, anyone who thinks it looks like a bomb is obviously an idiot because there's no big cannonball with a burning fuse in there to make it go boom? We're supposed to be impressed that little Ahmed is smart enough to buy a clock, dismantle a clock and put it back together again inside a suitcase, for no apparent reason, nefarious or otherwise?

The reason is plenty apparent, as I've previously stated....it just doesn't fit your desire to see it as something more nefarious than a not too smart kid seeking credit for something he didn't do. Occam's razor.

We're going with "dumb kid is trying to look smart by reassembling a clock in a briefcase" rather than "Son of a Sudanese political activist with ties to CAIR brings a bomb with everything but the boom to school."

Got it.

Hey, don't let me stop you, why don't you go ahead and call it a nuclear trigger with everything but the plutonium? A mini suitcase nuke. But if you prefer just a conventional bomb without the boom, why not at least add some imaginary anthrax or Ebola virus? If we're adding imaginary components it seems rather pedestrian to limit our imaginations.

Your interpretation seems to be that the kid and his parents are evil geniuses that totally played the school, and the police, seeking recognition of some kind, and got national media attention and and invite from the Prez. So, well played I guess. It's possible, but I'll stick with Occam's razor.

[philip964]

[

If there was a criminal investigation going on, I hope they offered him legal counsel and such. I honestly know nothing about how that works with minors.

If they did something they shouldn't then they can't use what info they acquired. I assume they conducted themselves in a legal manner mainly because it's in their own self interest.

My understanding a police officer is not to conduct criminal questioning of a minor without permission of his parents.

I do not think they got the permission of his parents. So why question him if it was all going to be inadmissible? Was it an emergency, they could not tell it was not a bomb so they needed to question him on how to prevent the explosion and loss of life at the school?

Or was everyone really wanting him to have his 15 minutes of fame, and show the world Texas is full of racists? Is the lawsuit next, will the taxpayers of Irving now have pay the family a settlement from both the school district and the city?

Has Obama invited the three Marines who stopped the terrorist attack in France to the White House yet?

[n5wd]

...Has Obama invited the three Marines who stopped the terrorist attack in France to the White House yet?

There were no Marines involved at all. It was a USAir Force airman, an Army National Guardsman, and a civilian and yes, the big O had them over to the White House yesterday or the day before, I forget which. They all sat around for a while with the TV cameras going, then they all got up and he shook their hands. All very presidentially packaged.

[EEllis]

[

If there was a criminal investigation going on, I hope they offered him legal counsel and such. I honestly know nothing about how that works with minors.

If they did something they shouldn't then they can't use what info they acquired. I assume they conducted themselves in a legal manner mainly because it's in their own self interest.

My understanding a police officer is not to conduct criminal questioning of a minor without permission of his parents.

I do not think they got the permission of his parents. So why question him if it was all going to be inadmissible? Was it an emergency, they could not tell it was not a bomb so they needed to question him on how to prevent the explosion and loss of life at the school?

Or was everyone really wanting him to have his 15 minutes of fame, and show the world Texas is full of racists? Is the lawsuit next, will the taxpayers of Irving now have pay the family a settlement from both the school district and the city

Ummm no, cops can question kids without having their parents present.

[jimlongley]

. . .
As to the red...I already gave my answer in a previous post: putting the disassembled clock in something other than the original enclosure makes it look "homemade." His motive was probably to claim he created something when he actually did not. The case is 8"x5.5"x2"....pretty small...and he didn't add anything that looks like explosive material which would be easy to do. Another reason for the case is to carry the disassembled parts.....how else could he transport his "invention" except in some kind of box? . . .

But he didn't just transport his magnificent invention in the case, he assembled it in it. And from the pictures the case could hold enough explosive, in the form of a sheet concealed under the foam, to yield about 700 volumes of gas at 8000+ meters per second. As seen over Lockerby that would be quite enough to take down a plane, and it could do a pretty nasty job on a classroom.

[Glockster]

And according to a news report I just saw, the police chief admitted that the arresting office knew that it was not a bomb.

[SA_Steve]

He sure got a lot of instant invites and accolades, white house, MIT, others

[SA_Steve]

Pretty clear they knew it was not a bomb from the get-go.
no evacuation
folks wait in the same room with the clock for the cops to come

maybe they figured if it was not plugged into the 110 V wall socket that it was safe enough

[EEllis]

Pretty clear they knew it was not a bomb from the get-go.
no evacuation
folks wait in the same room with the clock for the cops to come

maybe they figured if it was not plugged into the 110 V wall socket that it was safe enough

They called the cops on what they thought might be a Hoax bomb. That has been made clear by the school, the cops, and others.

[Beiruty]

So what is hoax bomb? And do you show a hoax bomb to your teacher???! In layman terms, hoax bomb is device wired and made to look like bomb but no real explosive material. Something like this yu'all kidos:

[Beiruty]

What amazes me is that the school, the PD did not retract or apologized for the suspension or the arrest.

[Excaliber]

I had not read the entirety of the 10 pages so I apologize if previously mentioned, but will the "cool clock" need to undergo SS scrutiny and inspection upon presentation at the White House?

No, because the Secret Service is reportedly now a branch of the TSA, not the Treasury Department like it used to be.