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> Eyman was referring to a number of conspiracy theories that appeared on the Internet about his arrest. Most attest that the incident was a pre-planned plot [.

• blakeyrat 11y ago
  I don't see how that changes the story at all. Whether or not he built the clock, the important thing is that he didn't build a bomb and was arrested by police officers who (then and now) fully admitted that he had committed no crime whatsoever.
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  • yelnatz 11y ago
    Yea, but I can see through how much of a poser he is. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFvB1I7uMGg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFvB1I7uMGg
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  • zeteo 11y ago
    > the important thing is that he didn't build a bomb and was arrested by police officers He was arrested on suspicion of perpetrating a bomb hoax. There may be a legitimate purpose for putting an existing clock inside a box where it can't be seen, and having it go off during class. But I'm less outraged if it turns out that law enforcement's only failure was missing out on that legitimate purpose when called to make a judgment on the spot.
  • beeboop 11y ago
    It changes it dramatically. People are saying he got in trouble because of racist school administration being overzealous. The reality, according to the best information we have, is that he was intentionally antagonizing his teachers for attention. What he made is a few blocks of play-doh away from looking like a bomb. A teacher sent him to the office for making what undeniably looks like a hoax bomb. Zero effort went into this - it wasn't a science project, it wasn't inventive, it wasn't something worth showing off other than "hehe this looks like a bomb!". The way he was treated by officers was absolutely shitty, but it wasn't any different than how officers treat people all day, every day, at schools all across America.
    • wolfgke 11y ago
      > The way he was treated by officers was absolutely shitty, but it wasn't any different than how officers treat people all day, every day, at schools all across America. If Ahmed Mohamed's case leads to a change in this area, I think a lot is won.
      • beeboop 11y ago
        The city leadership and police department leadership being 100% unapologetic and unwavering in their actions says otherwise.
  • bdcravens 11y ago
    If a kid was waving around a plastic gun that was painted black, would it be the same social justice concern?
  • rhino369 11y ago
    He wasn't arrested for building a bomb, but for building a fake bomb. I don't think you should arrest a kid for that even if it did, it's not worth it. However, it's not insane to think he was trying to cause an incident. The hypothesis goes: he wanted to get a teacher to believe he had a bomb so that he could claim religious profiling and racism. If that is what happened, that technically is a crime because the bomb was a hoax bomb. Why would someone think he was trying to trick a teacher into thinking it was a bomb. It's a weird thing to bring to school. It's not like he actually make a clock on his own. Clocks are not super impressive, but it's a good beginner amateur electronics project. But he didn't even do that. His comments in the media don't really show any understanding of electronics. Why was he so proud of pulling apart an off the shelf alarm clock and nailing it into a pencil case? He brought it out in each class of the day for no reason. He set it to go off in class for some reason. And then when he was questioned about it, he was reportedly very tight lipped. He could have been nervous being in trouble. Or he could have been trying to create a scandal. Mark Cuban said when he called the kid that someone else was feeding him answers. His sister got in trouble in a bomb scare situation at the same school district. And then the family goes on a media tour meeting with mass murdering Islamic leaders--al-Bashir. And suddenly the family is moving to Qatar. His Father was also involved in a high profile media circus regarding a Koran burning. It's not clear that it was a purposeful stunt. But I don't think it requires conspiracy level thinking to believe it was.
    • jonlucc 11y ago
      Bringing an alarm clock to school and NOT setting it to go off during class is more suspicious to me.
• TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
  He assembled two broken clocks together into a $20 box he bought. He didn't make a clock, exactly, but he didn't claim to. And it changes nothing. To claim that he was trying to make it look like a bomb for attention is absurd.
  • nikolay 11y ago
    It does change things as the media (including the social media) has presented things much differently.
  • hugh4 11y ago
    Why is it absurd? Whether it's true or false is another issue (I don't claim to know his motivations) but absurd?
  • rayiner 11y ago
    > And it changes nothing. To claim that he was trying to make it look like a bomb for attention is absurd. What is more absurd: that a teenager violated a school rule to get attention, or that a whole bunch of school administrators and police officers couldn't tell an alarm clock apart from a bomb?
    • fein 11y ago
      What's most absurd is that his parents weren't wise enough (optimistic theory) to tell their kid that this was a very shitty idea. This is a case of parents using their child as a publicity stunt (pessimistic theory).
    • beeboop 11y ago
      The administration knew it wasn't a bomb. If they actually thought it was a bomb, even slightly, they would have had a bomb drill. They have bomb drills for anonymous phone calls for shit's sake. They knew it was a hoax and he was attention seeking which is why he was sent to the office.
      • dragonwriter 11y ago
• mozumder 11y ago
  So, case-modding. That's an art form as well.
  • CaptSpify 11y ago
    Especially for high-school kids who are getting started in tech
    • hugh4 11y ago
      But not usually worthy of a White House invitation.
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      • dragonwriter 11y ago
        Neither would actually building a clock from scratch have been, usually. The White House invitation was a direct counter to the negative overreaction of local officials, and a means of sending a message to other tinkerers -- and other local officials -- that the kind of reaction that occurred was not acceptable.
• deleted 11y ago
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• anon1mous 11y ago
  "Conspiracy theory" most of the time means exactly "legitimate criticism that the article/TV/politician wants to gloss over".
  • cbd1984 11y ago
    Uh, no, it mostly means "insane hypothesis which no amount of evidence can disprove but which some people will believe in regardless", such as the conspiracy theory that Jews perpetrated 9/11 or that vaccines cause autism or that Obama was born in Kenya.
  • abritinthebay 11y ago
    No, usually it means "something with no shred of legitimacy or basis in facts that supporters will nonetheless defend with vitriol". But nice try.
    • Karunamon 11y ago
      Unfortunately for your snark, the facts are against you. Fact 1: Ahmed claimed to have "invented" this clock in a video. He did not. It is proven without a doubt to be a radio shack clock's guts stuffed in a case. Fact 2: The clock was powered via AC, meaning no beeping (one thing all accounts report on) unless it was plugged in. Which it did. Who plugs in an alarm clock in English class? Fact 3: His engineering teacher, the guy he supposedly brought it in to show, told him to leave it with him / not show it to other teachers. He did otherwise. Fact 4: There is no legitimate evidence that this incident was based on race. Plenty of white kids getting kicked out of school for toy guns. Fact 5: His dad is a known political agitator, most famously for a koran-burning incident in Florida a while back. Taken alone, any one of these things don't really mean much. Added up, there aren't many scenarios that look good for him. I really don't see why this is so outlandish to consider - it takes knowledge that school admins are generally idiots, combined with a misguided desire to either highlight a legitimate problem (said idiocy or islamophobia, take your pick), or plain old fashioned fame seeking. Not exactly rare mindsets.
      • blakeyrat 11y ago
• rayiner 11y ago
  This is pretty much my takeaway too: > Ahmed wasn’t accused of making a bomb – he was accused of making a look-alike, a hoax. And be honest with yourself, a big red digital display with a bunch of loose wires in a brief-case looking box is awful like a Hollywood-style representation of a bomb. Everyone jumped to play the race and religion cards and try and paint the teachers and police as idiots and bigots, but in my mind, they were probably acting responsibly and erring on the side of caution to protect the rest of their students, just in case. “This wouldn’t have happened if Ahmed were white,” they say. We’re supposed to be sensitive to school violence, but apparently religious and racial sensitivity trumps that. At least we have another clue about how the sensitivity and moral outrage pecking order lies. What happened here is really clear, and it has nothing to do with this kid being named "Ahmed." He got in trouble because he made a look-alike bomb. Nobody thought it was a real bomb, but that's besides the point. Plenty of white kids get suspended from school for bringing in toy guns that are clearly, without debate, toys. Maybe "zero tolerance" for weapon look-alikes is a stupid policy, but it's a different sort of stupid policy than what people are attacking in this case.
  • tedks 11y ago
    For anyone who doubts this interpretation, here are the relevant district policy documents outlining the classification[1] of "weapons" (which includes "look-alike weapons" in the terminology of the district) and the penalty[2] (mandatory expulsion, as required by Texas state law). [1] http://www.irvingisd.net/cms/lib010/TX01917973/Centricity/Domain/1454/Irving%20ISD%20Student%20Code%20of%20Conduct%202015-2106%20English.pdf http://www.irvingisd.net/cms/lib010/TX01917973/Centricity/Do... [2] http://pol.tasb.org/Policy/Download/367?filename=FOD(LEGAL).pdf http://pol.tasb.org/Policy/Download/367?filename=FOD(LEGAL).... Does anyone think that the American media is some unbiased, objective actor that brings stories to the national attention on nothing more than journalistic merit? Because if you do, you're either stoned or stupid. Remember that this happened in the middle of a news cycle about Donald Trump and other Republicans being islamophobic. I'm willing to think that the kid and his father aren't deliberately gaming the media machine, but obviously nobody above that level is acting out of anything but self-interest.
  • SilasX 11y ago
• flycaliguy 11y ago
  The one thing I don't understand is how it went off in class. Did he plug it in? Do classrooms all have plugs for laptops now or did he have to situate himself near one? Alternatively, did he use the battery backup? Wouldn't that mean he set the alarm for during class when it was plugged in and then unplugged it?
  • zoidb 11y ago
    From the pictures this type of clock has a 9v battery for when the power goes off, not enough power to drive the display but enough to trigger the alarm. This would also explain why (maybe) he didn't realize it would go off during class.