Police Knew Ahmed's Clock Wasn't a Bomb, Still Arrested him

Ahmed Mohamed

14-year-old Ahmed Mohamed has received support from all around the country after he was arrested in Irving, Texas earlier this week for what police are now calling a “hoax bomb.” President Barack Obama invited him to the White House, Twitter offered him an internship, and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg even gave him a shout out. 

                                                     Handcuffed  Ahmed Mohamed

Now, The Huffington Post is reporting that authorities were aware Mohamed’s device posed no threat to the school but still took him to a juvenile detention facility anyway.  “The officers pretty quickly determined that they weren’t investigating an explosive device,” Police Chief Larry Boyd told MSNBC. “What their investigation centered around is the law violation of bringing a device into a facility like that that is intended to create a level of alarm. In other words, a hoax bomb — something that is not really a bomb, but is designed and presented in a way that it creates people to be afraid.”

Mohamed carried the home-made device in his backpack and when it beeped during English class, he showed his teacher what was making noise in the middle of  her lesson. “She was like, it looks like a bomb,” he explained to Dallas Morning News. “I told her, ‘It doesn’t look like a bomb to me.’”

High school freshman Ahmed Mohamed says he will no longer attend MacArthur High School.

Ahmed Mohamed, 14, was arrested and led out of his school, but has since been invited to the White House

Facing public outrage for possible discrimination, Boyd insists that that was not the case. When asked if the teen’s religion had anything to do with his arrest, he said their response “would have been the same” under any other circumstance. The police chief added, "We live in an age where you can’t take things like that to school. Of course we’ve seen across our country horrific things happen, so we have to err on the side of caution.” After the incident, MacArthur High School invited Mohamed to return as a student but the science enthusiast declined.

Ahmed Mohammed and his controversial invention

Jeff Hood, executive director of Hope for Peace and Justice, speaks to the media at a prayer vigil in support of Ahmed Mohamed, Thursday, Sept. 17, 2015, in Irving, Texas. Ahmed, 14, was arrested Monday when teachers and police mistook a clock he built and brought to school for a bomb. (AP Photo/Jeffrey McWhorter).

Aisha U-kiu, president of American Muslim Professionals of Dallas and a graduate of MacArthur High School, speaks at a prayer vigil in support of Ahmed Mohamed, Thursday, Sept. 17, 2015, in Irving, Texas. Ahmed, 14, was arrested Monday at MacArthur High School when a clock he built and brought to school was mistaken for a bomb by teachers and police. (AP Photo/Jeffrey McWhorter). 

 The detention of a 14-year-old Muslim boy from Texas after teachers decided a homemade clock looked like a bomb echoed all the way to Washington with President Barack Obama inviting him to the White House in a Tweet. (Sept. 16) . President Barack Obama on hearing about the story of Ahmed Mohamed tweeted: