Ahmed’s Clock

Posted By Cliff Tuttle | September 18, 2015

No. 1,218

By now, if you watch the news, you’ve probably heard about how a geeky junior high school kid named Ahmed Mohammed brought a clock he had built to school to show his teacher.  All was well until the clock beeped in the back of the room and various other teachers, so we are told, suggested it might be a bomb.

Ahmed was cuffed and arrested, but never charged.  When his school suspension will be lifted, soon, he intends not to go back, but to find another school.

Naturally, Ahmed became an overnight hero on the internet, much to the embarrassment of the school administration. He has been invited to the White House, to visit Mr. Zuckerberg and to intern at Twitter.  He says he wants to go to MIT.  After such favorable publicity, he probably will.

I don’t know anything about clocks or bombs, but based on James Bond movies, the device pictured above looks like it might just be a bomb.  So I don’t blame the school for being concerned and even taking precautions, like evacuating the building until the clock could be examined by the bomb squad.  But perhaps they went a little too far by handcuffing Ahmed.

We occasionally hear about a much younger child bringing a gun or knife to school, perhaps under innocent circumstances.  The only solution to this problem is to establish a protocol and to conduct classes for both parents and teachers.It doesn’t have to be an expensive process.  It would be an easy task to produce a tutorial on the subject.  Perhaps Ahmed could star in the tutorial.

CLT

Welcome

CLIFF TUTTLE has been a Pennsylvania lawyer for over 45 years and (inter alia) is a real estate litigator and legal writer. The posts in this blog are intended to provide general information about legal topics of interest to lawyers and consumers with a Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania focus. However, this information does not constitute legal advice and there is no lawyer-client relationship created when you read this blog. You are encouraged to leave comments but be aware that posted comments can be read by others. If you wish to contact me in privacy, please use the Contact Form located immediately below this message. I will reply promptly and in strict confidence.

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