A Boy, “His” Clock and a Herd of Sheep

On September 14th, a squad of FBI agents burst into Mohammed’s school to arrest the teen over a clock he made, alleging that it was a bomb and unfairly beating him before arresting him and firing off their guns into the air as Texans do. See? I can make up an elaborate story to support a ridiculous sensationalist viewpoint as well.

Now, here’s what really happened: Mohammed had brought a clock which he had took out of its casing and put into a suitcase and took it to school, allegedly to show his engineering teacher. His engineering teacher, fearing that others may mistake it for a bomb, told him not to show it to any of his other teachers. Still, Mohamad brought it to his English class – where he had set a timer to ensure that it would go off in class. His teacher took notice and told him to put the clock away, which he failed to do and, so, it went off again. This is when he was sent to the principal’s office and the police were called.

Here’s where the story completely branches out from what the mainstream media is claiming happened; the police were called on suspicion that Ahmed had brought a hoax bomb to school. Again, we see the story diverge from what we were fed when he was arrested not for the presumed hoax bomb, but for refusing to comply with the police. This whole story was reported by multiple people, including “The Daily Mail” and “Breitbart”, while other less reputable ‘news’ outlets only presented the parts of the story that would support their sensationalist viewpoint.

Why is this story important? It’s important because of what happens next: Ahmed and his family claim that he was persecuted due to Islamophobia and racism. Following this, he was granted over $10,000 of gear by from Microsoft; an internship at Facebook; he was invited to the White House; and, other important events such as the Social Good Summit as well as getting a scholarship to a school in Qatar. This is relevant because it is becoming more and more apparent that this whole thing may have been a hoax used to garner attention. He may have actually brought “his” clock (and I put that in quotations because all he did was take the casing off a clock and put it into a pencil case, wrapping it up with wire (,apparently to make it “less” suspicious), to school to generate a reaction exactly like the one he got. This is becoming more and more apparent as more information on the boy and his family comes out. Mohammed had lied initially, claiming to Al-Jazeera in an interview that the clock was “built from scrap around the house”, and that wasn’t even the tip of the iceberg of the suspicious behavior and lies surrounding him; such as the fact that he claimed that he was arrested for the clock itself. He was actually arrested for not complying with the police when they arrived at the school to question him for the clock, something which his principle who was present at the scene confirmed. This isn’t even scratching the surface of this whole situation. His sister was suspended from his school for threatening to blow it up, his sister was heard by Mark Cuban on the phone during an interview giving him the answers to Mark’s questions, he, as well, has been suspended multiple times for bad behavior (which makes it all the more likely that this clock may have been a prank in bad taste) and to top this whole strange situation off, his father is a 9/11 conspiracist who shared on his Facebook in Arabic that this situation will help spread Islam in America. All of this doesn’t begin to explain all of the strange things going on in this situation.

So he lied about the entire situation in order to look like a victim and took monetary compensation from it, why is this wrong? It is wrong because this constitutes fraud and is against the law. There’s too much evidence that this was all a lie, from him being given the answers to the questions when interviewed (which was noted on multiple occasions) to his lying about having built the clock, then the claim that he was arrested for the clock when in reality he chose to get wise with the officers on the scene and act uncooperatively. This whole article wasn’t made to persecute him though, others are doing a good enough job of that, this article was made to tell everyone who came to the immediate conclusion that he was innocent and everything was due to Islamophobia to stop being so naïve.

People like Barrack Obama who immediately invited him to the White House and Microsoft who gave him over ten thousand dollars’ worth of gear should maybe question a situation before jumping on it like sheep because someone uses a trigger word like “racism” or “Islamophobia”. I know it can be tempting to be part of the proverbial herd of lemmings and jump off the cliff, but every situation must be treated with some suspicion and some thought must be put into scenarios like this. People shouldn’t act like sheep. We should look at a situation and think of it critically, look at the allegations and come up with a conclusion, not immediately, but with a little bit of thought and some reservations. Our ability to think critically is not something which we should use sparingly, but something which we must apply to every situation, lest we be disgraced by falling for someone’s poorly thought out lie, topped off with a bit of victimhood.

By Stephen Haney-Hernandez

Originally Published: November 2015