The family of Ahmed “clock boy” Mohamed, the fourteen year old student who arrested his bring a homemade clock to school (that happened to look like a bomb), is demanding a written apology and $15 million from the city of Irving, TX, and it’s independent school district.
The demands are supposed to be “compensation” for disregarding his rights and permanently “damaging” the family’s reputation. The letter, which was written by the family’s lawyer stated that Ahmed’s reputation in the global community is permanently scarred.
It would seem that Mohamed family has different meanings for the words like “damaging” and “scarred” than what’s written in the dictionary. Since Ahmed’s clock situation, the family has become international celebrities.
Ahmed has dined with President Obama, hugged a ruthless dictator and was offered a full scholarship in Qatar.
It sounds like this clock business worked out exactly how he wanted it to. The letter also claimed that arrest was racially motivated, well, what did the parents think was going to happen?
Read more about this letter on the next page.
Tell him to go pound sand
Charles Anderson November 23, 2015 Page 10 They tried to push responsibility off on the victim – Ahmed. They have even implied publicly that what has come of this has been good for Ahmed, as though the resilience of this fine boy and his fine family somehow excuses what they did. It does not, for there is no excuse. As Justice Clarence Thomas once said: “This is a high-tech lynching.” Demand As a result of the above-described violations of Ahmed’s constitutional, statutory, and common law rights, and the damages flowing from those violations, we demand the following: 1. 2. 3. Ten million dollars as compensation for the damages Ahmed suffered at the hands of the City of Irving and its employees. A written apology from Mayor Van Duyne acknowledging that she has never been presented with any evidence that Ahmed was a “pawn” in any “civilization jihad” or that the events here were planned by Ahmed’s family or friends as part of an “influence operation.” A written apology from Police Chief Larry Boyd acknowledging that Ahmed Mohamed never intended to threaten anyone, and that his detention, interrogation, and arrest were wrongful and were made at a point in time when there was no reasonable suspicion to believe that Ahmed had committed a crime or was about to commit any crime. If you fail to comply with the above demands within sixty days from the date of this letter, you should expect that we will file a civil action addressing the causes of action and events described in this letter.
Charles Anderson November 23, 2015 Page 9 Other damages are more conducive to quantification. Ahmed and his siblings had the right to a free and adequate public education, just like every other American child does. Ahmed first attended Irving ISD in pre-K, and he and all of his siblings had gone to school nearly exclusively in the Irving ISD. When, two days after the incident, in coordination with the City, Mr. Cummings went onto the MacArthur High School intercom system and called Ahmed and his family liars, he took that opportunity away from Ahmed and all of his siblings. Ahmed also has suffered severe psychological trauma during his involuntarily separation from his grandmother and extended family. This trauma has since been amplified due to the global media attention this incident has gathered. Ahmed and his siblings know that his life has inalterably changed. Ahmed will now forever be associated with bomb making wholly without basis. Many believe that Ahmed and his family are terrorists, similar to those responsible for the September 11th attacks on the Twin Towers. This false characterization brings both short- and long-term challenges. In the short-term Ahmed fears for his physical safety after receiving many threatening emails. In the long-term, we adults should know that – despite Ahmed’s efforts to be strong, and to prove that he is “a good boy” – he will experience pain and suffering as result of this for the rest of his days. A large segment of potential employers will steer clear of Ahmed to avoid controversy, despite his many obvious talents. There is no other way to put it: Ahmed’s reputation in the global community is permanently scarred. One also would anticipate that Ahmed, quite reasonably, will have a lifelong fear of the law enforcement and educational establishments that have let him down so terribly. Consider for a moment the true reason that Ahmed brought the clock to school. He was trying to impress his teachers. Anyone who has been around teenage boys knows that they are looking for leaders and mentors. They yearn to find acceptance in the results of their labors, whether it is in sports, the arts, or something technical. Ahmed was reaching out that day. Irving ISD and the Irving PD unceremoniously slapped him away, and then sought to cover their mistakes with a media campaign that further alienated the child at the center of this maelstrom. What must that do to a young man? Finally, Ahmed and his family lost their home. The address that was tweeted out for the entire world to see was the only home Ahmed and his five siblings had ever known. This family left their home in Irving because of a very rational fear for their physical safety. On an elemental level, the Mohamed family’s life as any of them had known it evaporated that day at the hands of the Irving ISD and City of Irving. While many people online were gleeful to see them leaving their home in Irving, Texas, U.S.A., Ahmed and his family miss Texas. They miss their friends. They miss their grandmother. They miss their extended family. They miss their neighbors, many of whom cried hugged them as the Mohamed’s left their home. They very much appreciate the hospitality they have received in Qatar, but it’s not Texas. In ways that are virtually impossible to comprehend, this thing turned the Mohamed family’s lives upside down. All semblance of what they knew before has vanished. But even after the scale of the eruption became clear, rather than trying to calm the waters, Irving ISD and the City of Irving launched a public relations campaign against Ahmed. They stoked the flames.
No !!!!!!!!!!
Charles Anderson November 23, 2015 Page 8 overreaction was that the responsible adults involved irrationally assumed that Ahmed was dangerous because of his race, national origin, and religion. Let’s face it; if Ahmed’s clock were “Jennifer’s clock,” and if the pencil case were ruby red bedazzled with a clear rhinestone skull and crossbones on the cover, this would never have happened. The Aftermath The Irving ISD and City of Irving Police Officers with whom Ahmed came in contact that day were tasked with the same responsibilities toward Ahmed as they were for all the other students. Ahmed never threatened anyone, never caused harm to anyone, and never intended to. The only one who was hurt that day was Ahmed, and the damages he suffered were not because of oversight or incompetence. The school and city officials involved knew what they needed to do to protect Ahmed’s rights. They just decided not to do it. Their after-the-fact attempts to couch their deliberate disregard of Ahmed’s rights as being motivated by concerns for the safety of the other students has only added to the harm Ahmed and his family have suffered. Ahmed endangered no one. Some aspects of the damages Ahmed has suffered as a result of this are quite difficult to quantify with certainty, though they are clearly severe. It is difficult to say how much monetary damage is caused by any of the following: – – – – – – Ahmed having his 14-year-old face superimposed onto a famous image of Osama bin Laden – beard included – appearing below a blogger’s rant against the “parents of this little terrorist in training;” Ahmed being turned into Glenn Beck’s latest object lesson in how “this is really kind of the final throes of weakening us to the point to where we don’t ask any questions, to be ready for final confrontation, total confrontation,” while Mayor Beth Van Duyne, listens and nods, putting her imprimatur on Beck’s delusional conspiracy theories; Ahmed being portrayed as the “Clock Boy” on a Halloween costume website; having Ahmed’s name, and particularly his likeness, forever associated with arguably the most contentious and divisive socio-political issue of our time; Ahmed feeling the burden of responsibility for his siblings being harassed and scared to go to school, for his father’s business suffering greatly from Mr. Mohamed’s absence, for one of his sisters being fired from her job, and for neither of his older sisters being able to find schools in Qatar; and the loss of security that goes with having Ahmed’s Irving home address tweeted out, and being labeled on Beck’s show as “pawn” of the architects of a “global jihad.”
fuqem !!!
Charles Anderson November 23, 2015 Page 7 that he was not in custody during the on-campus interrogation, then Ahmed should have been Mirandized when he was cuffed. Ahmed should not have been detained when police knew immediately that there was no threat. The detention should have ended – rather than been prolonged – while police walked the arrest decision up the chain of command. This whole chain of events was an extraordinary rendition in miniature, in which Ahmed was treated as though he had no rights at all, despite his American citizenship. 42 U.S.C. § 1983 Ahmed also has claims against the City employees under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, which permits claims against individuals who “under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States . . . deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution.” Section 1983 has been interpreted to allow suits for suits against police officers and other state officials (such as school personnel) acting in their official capacities. Hafer v. Melo, 502 U.S. 21, 112 S.Ct. 358 (1991); Gillette v. Delmore, 979 F.2d 1342 (9th Cir. 1992). Liability also attaches to the city itself if the actions of the officers were pursuant to the official policy of the City of Irving. Chief Boyd repeatedly stated that Irving Police acted in accordance with policy. This means that the City of Irving a governmental unit is equally responsible for Ahmed’s damages. As American citizens, all of us – even the ones with “Muslim-sounding” names like Ahmed Mohamed – are entitled to have public officials with whom we come in contact to respect our rights. Ahmed’s rights were clearly violated. He was detained and interrogated by high-ranking employees of Irving ISD and the Irving Police Department, pressured to falsely confess to a crime he did not commit (and that no responsible person believed he had committed), and then interrogated again by the Irving Police Department at the juvenile detention center, all without his parents being notified or present. These are real, substantive rights, and their loss damaged Ahmed as a matter of law. Title VI Ahmed also has claims under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. 42 U.S.C. § 2000D states that , “No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” A deciding factor in private Title VI suits is whether “a challenged action was motivated by an intent to discriminate.” Elston v. Talladega County Board of Education, 997 F.2d at 1406. One of the factors used to determine if discrimination intent exists is any departure, substantive or procedural from the normal decision making process. Village of Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp, 429 U.S. 252 (1977). Ahmed clearly was singled out because of his race, national origin, and religion. Irving Police officials immediately determined that the clock was harmless. The only reason for the
Was that before or after you made a clock that looked like a potential threat to an entire school you idiot
Well said!
Charles Anderson November 23, 2015 Page 6 did not explain where she got Ahmed’s private educational information. Nor did she assert any justification for her choice to release it to an audience that is paranoid about the “final confrontation” between “Islamists” and “Americans.” Not only was this dangerous “baiting” that destroyed any chance the Mohamed family ever had of being truly safe and secure in the United States, but it was also defamatory. In order for the Texas zero tolerance standard to apply, the incident must have involved (1) a weapon, (2) drugs or alcohol, or (3) threats of harm to someone. There was no weapon. There were no drugs and alcohol involved. And the only person threatened that day was Ahmed. Mayor Beth Van Duyne lied about Ahmed and his family, and she did it to an audience that is on the absolute fringe of American life. Van Duyne irreparably endangered the safety of the Ahmed family. Police Chief Larry Boyd Two days after the incident, Chief Boyd went before the media and called the clock a “very suspicious device.” He referred the media to a photo of the clock that the police released. The first photo released was cropped in a way that it was impossible to get a perspective on its size. It was, in fact, tiny. It was also open, and taken from an angle that obscured the tiger hologram which would have immediately identified it as pencil case. In the large segment of the media who were anxious to label Ahmed as a budding bomb builder, the pencil case became a “briefcase” or even a “suitcase.” Chief Boyd also claimed that “we live in an age where you can’t take things like that to school.” Irving Police Department spokesman James McLellan later said that the clock “could reasonably be mistaken as a device if left in a bathroom or under a car.” This is an absurd rationalization, designed to head off or blunt what internal communications called, “the highly likely event that we get sued over this arrest.” If the clock had been left somewhere that it looked “planted,” it would have looked like Ahmed lost his tiger hologram pencil box. But the city’s carefully calibrated message fed the misperception that the actions of the police and school toward Ahmed were justified. Violations of Ahmed’s Fourth Amendment Rights Both on campus and at the station, Irving police knowingly disregarded Ahmed’s rights against unreasonable searches and seizures. Ahmed was detained and interrogated when there was no reasonable suspicion to belief that a specific crime had been committed or that he was about to commit any crime. The attempt to coerce from Ahmed a confession to a “hoax bomb” violation, and the later public castigation he received from Irving officials for his refusal to be coerced violated both Ahmed’s procedural and substantive due process rights. This is not a case where a few of Ahmed’s rights were disregarded. From the time Ahmed was escorted out of class and into the interrogation room, he was treated by ALL of the adults responsible for his safety as though he had not rights at all. This was a complete breakdown in the City’s protection of Ahmed’s fundamental constitutional rights. Ahmed should have been allowed to have his parents or an attorney present during his detention and interrogation. He should have been Mirandized before the on-campus interrogation – which he obviously was not free to end – even commenced. If you want to argue