14-Year-Old Muslim American Student Arrested For Being Inventive

Ahmed Mohamed, a 14-year-old Muslim student at Texas' Irving MacArthur High, brought what he thought was an inventive showcase for a class project. Instead, his school day ended in handcuffs.

The 9th grader, who Dallas News describes as a smart kid who "makes his own radios and reparis his own go-kart," brought in a homemade clock to class. But rather than being impressed, his teacher said it resembled a bomb, and he was sent to the principal's office, where a police officer arrested him in handcuffs. The clock apparently had a circuit board, a metal case, and a digital clock display—like any old digital clock—but the authorities responded with, "It looks like a movie bomb to me."


A police spokesman said there was "no reason to think it was dangerous"; the verdict leans toward a clear case of Islamophobia. Ahmed said when he was brought to the principal an officer (who he's never seen before) looked at him and said, "Yup, that's who I thought it was." The unfair treatment of a harmless young student has Twitter trending with the hashtag #IStandWithAhmed.

Above, Ahmed talks about how he's always been an inventor and details of his traumatizing day, in which he was searched, interrogated, and arrested. The most disheartening part of this is that schools should be encouraging Ahmed's innovation, but instead he's faced with discouragement. Ahmed, we stand with you.