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.
Charles Anderson November 23, 2015 Page 5 (2) (3) (4) (5) Claim repeatedly that the media is not providing balanced coverage or the story; Assert that the whole thing was a misunderstanding that could have been avoided if Ahmed had not exercised – to the best of his abilities – of his 5th Amendment right to remain silent in the face of police and school interrogation; Claim the action was justified in today’s climate, and distort the size of the clock; and Push the false narrative that the school’s hands were tied by Texas’ “zero tolerance” law on school discipline. Coordinating with Principal Cummings and others at Irving ISD, Irving Police Chief Larry Boyd and Mayor Beth Van Duyne launched their plan. Items one and two were handled primarily by the school district. Items three and five were shared by the city and the district, and item four was taken care of primarily by the city. Mayor Beth Van Duyne Mayor Beth Van Duyne went on Glenn Beck’s television show, helped with some of the set up, then sat back and watched – and apparently approved – as Beck and his other guest at the time turned Ahmed’s story into what they called “an influence operation” that was undertaken – probably by Ahmed’s father (and maybe his sister) – in furtherance of a coming “civilization jihad.” Beck later opined that this was the “Islamists” conspiracy to soften us up, so that we could later be attacked from inside. When the guest sitting less than an arm’s length from Mayor Van Duyne called the pencil box a “briefcase,” she did not say a word. She just nodded. Mayor Van Duyne also characterized Ahmed as “passive aggressive” and “less than forthcoming” because he exercised his constitutional right to remain silent while he was being illegally detained and interrogated by the police. Combined with the “civilization jihad” backdrop established by her friend, Glenn Beck, the Mayor fed a completely false impression about Ahmed and his family. Van Duyne’s appearance with Glenn Beck came well after Irving Police had ruled out any wrongdoing by Ahmed under the “hoax bomb” law. Chief Boyd called the whole thing a “naive mistake.” The official investigation had already concluded that Ahmed did not intend to cause any alarm or reaction with his clock. Nonetheless, during the Beck interview, Mayor Van Duyne called the clock a “hoax bomb.” By doing so, Van Duyne defamed Ahmed, because she asserted (1) that he committed a crime that had already been ruled out, and (2) she implicitly claimed that Ahmed did in fact intend to cause alarm. Without Ahmed’s intent, there could be no hoax bomb. Finally, along with Irving ISD personnel, Van Duyne said that the reason Ahmed was suspended from school was because of Irving ISD’s “zero tolerance” policy. Mayor Van Duyne
Always looking for a payout or a handout
Go home .we don’t want u here
Go hug a camel.
Charles Anderson November 23, 2015 Page 4 No one who saw Ahmed’s clock that day thought it was a bomb. Ahmed did nothing to support the inference that he intended to cause alarm, or any reaction at all (other than his teachers’ approval), in anyone. Irving police quickly determined that the clock was not dangerous. It appears that the police kept escalating the situation because they were frustrated that they failed to coerce Ahmed into signing a false confession. With no evidence whatsoever, Irving Police arrested Ahmed anyway. He was not Mirandized at this point either. After he was senselessly arm barred, four officers escorted Ahmed out of school in handcuffs. Police Chief Larry Boyd later claimed that Ahmed was handcuffed, “for his safety and for the safety of the officers.” One must ask, whose safety was the arm bar for? Ahmed remembers the look of bewilderment on the face of his school counselor, who Ahmed said “knows I’m a good boy.” Irving Police took him to a detention center where he was fingerprinted, photographed, and illegally questioned – again – without his parents present. In violation of the Texas Juvenile Justice Code, Police officials left Ahmed alone while he was in custody. When Police finally contacted Ahmed’s father, Mr. Mohamed was at the police station within moments. The Irving Police were openly hostile to Ahmed’s family when they arrived at the station. Understandably, Mr. Mohamed was furious at the treatment of his son – and at the rancid, openly discriminatory intent that motivated it. Irving Police did not, however, want to hear any of it from Mr. Mohamed. When he asked Lieutenant John Mitchell to speak to his boss, Lt. Mitchell responded brusquely, and inaccurately, that he was the boss. When Mr. Mohamed started talking about the enormous power Mitchell had and how he had abused that power against a young boy, Mitchell wanted to hear nothing of it. Instead, Lt. Mitchell told Mr. Mohamed to take his son and leave, or they would arrest Mr. Mohamed, too. Start to finish, the Irving Police bullied Ahmed Mohamed, and when Ahmed’s dad tried to voice his concerns, he got threatened, too. United States Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once noted that, “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.” Intuitively understanding this, Ahmed’s sister took a picture of Ahmed in handcuffs and tweeted it out. Before long, and to the great dismay of the Irving authorities who caused this mess, the sunlight of global scrutiny shone bright on MacArthur High School and the City of Irving. Naturally, it was not long before people remembered the notoriety Mayor Van Duyne had gained for herself earlier this year by stoking the flames of Islamophobia. The City Scrambles to Save Face (and Kneecap a Kid in the Media) Knowing they could not really defend what they had done, City of Irving and Irving ISD officials chose another course: trash Ahmed. This was going to be tricky in light of Ahmed’s well-recognized right to privacy in his educational information. Thus, they devised a plan to do an end run around Ahmed’s privacy and achieve their purposes anyway: (1) Publicly pressure Ahmed’s parents to release his educational information;
What a giant POS.
screw him..
Screw you kid
This is the beginning of the end if he gets a penny of taxpayer money!
Charles Anderson November 23, 2015 Page 3 morning, the alarm clock accidentally sounded when Ahmed plugged it in to show it to a friend. Ms. West noticed the alarm, but did not identify where it came from. Ahmed turned the alarm off without incident. As Ahmed was leaving at the end of class – after most of the other students were already gone – Ahmed reminded Ms. West that he said he was going to bring her something and asked her if she wanted to see the clock he had built. Ms. West responded that she did want to see it. When Ms. West saw the clock, she told Ahmed it looked like a bomb, immediately confiscated the clock and reported Ahmed to the school principal’s office. During the exchange with Ms. West, Ahmed started what would become his refrain for the day: “It’s an alarm clock. It’s only an alarm clock.” The basis for Ms. West’s actions is unclear. She certainly did not treat the clock as though it were dangerous. Ms. West initially placed the clock on her desk. Right around 2:00 p.m., during Ahmed’s AVID class, Principal Daniel Cummings and an Irving police officer appeared and escorted Ahmed out of his class. They took Ahmed into another room where four more Irving police officers and Assistant Principal Patrick Smith were awaiting Ahmed’s arrival. Immediately upon Ahmed entering the interrogation room, Irving Police Officer Charles Taylor commented, “Yep. That’s who I thought it was.” Ahmed found this to be quite unnerving because he had never had any prior contact with Officer Taylor. The on-campus detention and 7-on-1 interrogation went on for approximately one hour and 25 minutes. Ahmed asked nearly immediately if he could contact his parents – which as you know, is his right under the Texas Juvenile Justice Code. His request was refused: “No. You’re being interrogated, so you cannot talk to your parents.” No one involved treated the clock as a potential explosive or incendiary device. The City of Irving’s documents support that the oncampus detention and interrogation lasted so long because the police were walking the decision about whether to arrest Ahmed up the chain of command. They were stretching the interrogation as long as possible, so they could find someone willing to take responsibility for arresting Ahmed. The decision to arrest apparently was made by the Assistant Chief. Throughout the on-campus detention and interrogation – which was recorded on the iPhone of the one female officer present during the interrogation – Ahmed constantly was pressured to sign a written statement admitting that he intended to bring a “hoax bomb” to school. As if the pressure of having five uniformed Irving police officers were not enough – none of whom saw fit to Mirandize Ahmed – Mr. Cummings was threatening that if Ahmed did not sign the confession, he would be expelled. That is a huge threat for a kid like Ahmed. He rated MIT’s interest in having him as a student as more exciting than meeting the President of the United States. The detention, interrogation, search of Ahmed’s belongings, and the arrest all occurred despite there being no reasonable suspicion to believe that Ahmed had committed or was about to commit any crime. Through the entire ordeal, Ahmed steadfastly maintained that the only reason he brought the clock to school was to show it off to some of his teachers. City and school personnel commented later to the press that Ahmed was not forthcoming during the inquisition. It seems not to have dawned on any of them that he was scared to death, and that despite having never been read his rights, he in fact had a right not to talk.