
Ahmed Mohamed: 'Clock boy' seeks $15m from city and school - hannibalhorn
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34904226
======
jaxomlotus
Sorry, that seems opportunistic. I felt bad for him, but no way he was scarred
to the tune of $15 million. Even the bad experience had a major upside - he
was offered an internship to Twitter and an invitation to the White House.
Schools are budget-deprived enough without adding frivolous lawsuits to the
mix.

In this case everyone involved in suspending him should have been seriously
reprimanded and an apology given (and I'm surprised one wasn't). But a $15
million lawsuit isn't the answer.

~~~
jonlucc
I think this is how you get schools to care and avoid doing the same in the
future.

~~~
jaxomlotus
Should schools really not take security seriously though? Do we really want
people second guessing themselves when it comes to safety? That precedent is
asking for trouble.

~~~
dllthomas
How does safety enter into it? Everyone knew it wasn't a bomb. Some people
thought it was pretending to be a bomb, other people contend that it wasn't
pretending to be a bomb. How are you worried about people second guessing
themselves, in that context?

Schools have procedures for when there's a suspected bomb. They don't look
like what was done, here. There was never a suspected bomb - only a suspected
hoax.

~~~
ltorresv
Everyone knew it wasn't a bomb? Really? AFAIK he was asked what it was and he
was uncooperative although we won't ever know since his family refused the
public release of the police records.

Anyways, if we're going with hearsay then we should mention the boy's sister
was suspended for making a bomb threat so I'd doubt the average teacher would
just brush this off as "definitely not a bomb".

Now, seems like in your mind it would've been better for the school to send a
SWAT team after him. I'm sure that wouldn't be seen as a negative thing by
anyone.

~~~
dllthomas
Better? No. More consistent with "we thought it was a bomb"? Yes. At which
point, the discussion of what should be done when you think there's a bomb
becomes germane. So far as I understand it, no one involved is _claiming_ that
they thought it was a bomb.

Far more conspicuous than relative lack of force (which, depending on
particulars, might possibly have been a fine reaction to an actual bomb) is
the apparent lack of any move to evacuate other students.

------
addisonj
Regardless of what you think about all the actors at play here, this is one of
those stories to look back on that says... something... about the internet. A
few million tweets led to media attention, discourse about schools and race,
meetings with presidents and scholarships to prestigious universities. All
good things and all was once again well in the world and the internet won.

However, with time, more details come out that make the whole thing not quite
as clear cut and it becomes pretty obvious that there might be more than to
one side of the story that we all jumped into.

I don't pass any judgement, it just makes me wonder how to bring balance to
the social media firestorms and convey a more nuanced perspective to stories
like this.

~~~
hannibalhorn
I wasn't sure what you were talking about, with respect to the other side of
the story, but after searching ran across this article:

[http://blogs.artvoice.com/techvoice/2015/09/17/reverse-
engin...](http://blogs.artvoice.com/techvoice/2015/09/17/reverse-engineering-
ahmed-mohameds-clock-and-ourselves/)

Not sure how I missed it, but if anyone else did as well, it really looks like
he just moved the guts of an old clock into a new casing. He didn't really
design any circuitry at all.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Yeah well, fuck it. I'm officially done with controversies on the Internet. I
thought I was done already, but I fell for that one. Hell, I was even
considering participating in "build a clock in support of that boy" Hackaday
action (job stood in the way).

That's why I keep complaining about manipulative and lying media. It really
fucks up our society.

Thanks for posting the link. It's really good.

~~~
stillsut
WOAH, You just saw someone just changed their mind based on new evidence.
Didn't realize that happend IRL.

But _why_ are such important details left out of every media account?

For the clockmaker sympathizers: What educational value is gained by taking an
exisitng clock out of its normal casing?

------
kevindeasis
Why the internet changed their attitude and started hating Ahmed Mohammed

[https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3tzyos/e...](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3tzyos/eli5_ahmed_mohamed_why_does_reddit_hate_him_to/)

TLDR: People believe everything was set up by his sociopath Dad, who has a
background in being obsessed with the spot light.

------
nigrioid
He didn't even make the clock:
[http://blogs.artvoice.com/techvoice/2015/09/17/reverse-
engin...](http://blogs.artvoice.com/techvoice/2015/09/17/reverse-engineering-
ahmed-mohameds-clock-and-ourselves/)

------
mtimjones
I encourage everyone to dig into this story a bit more. This family acted in a
provocative way, and now they to attempt to punish the school and taxpayers.

~~~
mcphage
> This family acted in a provocative way

Lucky for them, then, that the school and police were as racist as his family
expected, and they walked right into his trap.

~~~
lingben
This had nothing to do with race. Children have gotten into serious trouble
just for drawing guns (see links below). This is a result of "zero tolerance"
policies which have been in place for a while now.

This child repeatedly brought out a clearly provocative object which he didn't
even make and which looked like a count down timer in a small container. He
also ignored e very single teacher who politely asked him to put it away.
Until finally one teacher got freaked out enough to take action.

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2486036/Eight-
year-o...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2486036/Eight-year-old-boy-
threatened-expulsion-school-drawing-pictures-Halloween-costumes-included-guns-
knives.html)

[http://www.cbsnews.com/news/13-year-old-suspended-for-
doodli...](http://www.cbsnews.com/news/13-year-old-suspended-for-doodling-
gun/)

I don't agree with his arrest just like I don't agree with those kids getting
into trouble for drawing guns. But to try to paint this as a race issue is
plainly ignorant at best.

When you look at the details of this case (the father who is a Sudanese
politician, the sister who tried something similar a few years ago, Mark Cuban
saying that when he was talking to him he was being fed lines and told what to
say, the fact that he didn't make the clock and has not even a cursory
knowledge of electronics commensurate with his age or skill - claiming in an
interview to 'solder' CPUs, etc.) then it becomes clear what this was really
about.

I feel sorry for the child because it is clear that his father orchestrated
all of this.

~~~
swang
Neither of your examples were the kids ever arrested.

So they suspect he has a bomb, but don't evacuate the school? If someone calls
into a school and says there is a bomb, they evacuate regardless of whether
its a hoax or not.

Also you misquote what Mark Cuban said, just like a lot of news sites that
want to focus the narrative that his sister "fed" him answers.

"I talked to the kid," Cuban said. "He's from Dallas, and I've talked to the
people in the school district. The kid is a super smart kid. Science geek. We
talked about science, but while I'm talking to him on the phone, as I ask him
a question, 'Tell me what happened because I'm curious.' Right? His sister,
over his shoulder, you could hear, listening to the question, giving him the
answer. So, I don't know all the details of what happened, but what I do know,
when I talked to him about science, when I talked to him about magnets, when I
talked to him about creating things, he was very, very engaged."

~~~
TeMPOraL
They didn't suspect he had an actual bomb. They suspected he's making a bomb
hoax. It's important to teach kids not to make bomb hoaxes.

~~~
swang
How do you charge someone with a "bomb hoax" unless someone initially assumed
there was an actual threat of a bomb? Can you just somehow jump straight to
"bomb hoax"?

Why do you need to call the police for a bomb threat you know to not be real?
If I said something stupid like, "I have a bomb" and the teacher _knows_ I'm
lying. The teacher probably sends me to the principal's office or maybe gives
me a stern lecture about "misusing words"

If he really did something that warranted cops being called why would the
Principal need to threaten him with expulsion if he didn't sign a written
statement coping to that fact? You either have him dead to rights on making
bomb scares or you don't.

I honestly don't know if his dad was the cause of him bringing that clock to
school. But man if that's true, the dad must have read the school well enough
to know they would try to arrest his son on something dumb.

------
gamesbrainiac
This move really undermines the overwhelming good will that people had towards
Ahmed.

~~~
oxide
I couldn't disagree more. Schools & cities both ought to live in fear of
lawsuits to stop this kind of nonsense from occuring as a kneejerk reaction
and give common sense an opportunity to prevail.

~~~
kelukelugames
Living in fear might be too strong. There needs to be a monetary deterrent
discourage abuse. For example, the Internet often claims police brutality will
drop if the settlements were paid from their pension.

~~~
jrs235
This punishes tax payers who didn't do it. To discourage abuse those that did
this should be fired. We need personal accountability.

------
sciguy77
When I was in middle school a kid got suspended for bringing a paper mache
firework to class (basically just a fist-sized cylinder with a wick). It turns
out it was completely hollow and didn't contain any black powder, but he still
got a suspension since it looked like a bomb. The kid was white. Islamophobia
is very much a real problem, but it seems reasonable that any kid in the same
situation might get in trouble as well. I haven't read the Steve Jobs book in
awhile, but didn't Wozniak bring a metronome to his high school that they
mistook for a bomb? Again, I'm not saying racism and Islomophobia in our
school system don't exist, but there's a long history of educators mistaking
harmless devices for explosives, and I think its a tad presumptuous to say
that this issue is only about race. Just my 2c.

------
lewisl9029
I'm seeing a lot of comments on how this was all orchestrated or how he didn't
actually make the clock.

Even if any of that were true, I'm not sure why it should change anything at
all. The issue from the very beginning was the school's reaction to the clock.

If any of them really did get fooled into thinking it was a bomb, then they
definitely wouldn't have handled it the way it did (handling the bomb
themselves instead of evacuating and calling in professionals). This was
simply a display of power by the school officials and police, and an attempt
to make an example out of a kid that was somewhat disobedient.

If they acted reasonably, this whole ordeal would have ended there and there
would have been nothing to further orchestrate by the kid's parents. They
didn't. And now they're paying the price and being made an example of
themselves. The irony is delicious.

~~~
escherize
Except they're not the ones paying the price. Anyone who pays taxes is
instead. There doesn't appear to be any accountability for this massive
mishandling of events. I think the next group of people who should get rights
(along with moral agency, and all the other hard parts of freedom) should be
children.

~~~
lewisl9029
True enough. Society is collectively paying the price, instead of the
individuals actually responsible. That is unfortunate, but I am still
cautiously optimistic that this could lead to people in positions of power to
think twice before abusing it.

------
kelukelugames
Gotta ask for $15 mil just to get a $10k settlement.

~~~
jonlucc
I assume this is partially about his detention without parental notification,
but maybe that would be the city, not the school. It seems a pretty big error
on the part of the administration and police.

------
lemiant
This makes no sense. The standard award for one death is $8m. In no world is
what he went through equal two people losing their lives.

~~~
jrockway
Living people appeal better to the emotions of jurors. If you want a lot of
money out of a lawsuit, don't die.

------
xaver
Interesting to watch all the bitter fighting over control of the narrative. I
feel like the comment threads all over the internet are a more interesting
story than the story itself.

------
LukeWalsh
Internet outraged to lose boy hero. Meanwhile Ahmed laughs all the way to the
bank.

------
rezashirazian
I wonder if they got persuaded by lawyers to do this.

------
coleifer
Schools are already hurting so badly from frivolous lawsuits and
oversensitive, opportunistic people. Schools are one of the few institutions
trying to actually do some good. Don't kick them when they're already down.

------
fleitz
I wish I got $15 million every time I got called to the principals office.

------
andyl
The clock boy incident was a clever hoax. Ahmed and his family may not be
great engineers, but showed themselves masters of our media and legal system.

------
InclinedPlane
This thread makes me want to stop coming to HN.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Why is it so?

This thread is one of the reasons why I come to HN. It turns out that yet
another important story of this year was utter fabrication and lies. I
wouldn't know about it if not for HN, and would keep believing falsehoods.

~~~
foldr
That point of view on the story has been covered all over the mainstream
media. E.g.:

[http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/09/22/clock-
controversy...](http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/09/22/clock-controversy-
may-cause-headache-for-obama-as-doubts-raised-about-story.html)

~~~
TeMPOraL
I don't read mainstream media. Too much bullshit. If something is important
enough, it'll pop up on HN - usually with the people in the know pointing out
all the blatant lies made by the news source.

~~~
foldr
Well, sure, if HN is your only source of information, then you wouldn't know
anything if it wasn't for HN.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I didn't say it's the only source.

~~~
foldr
I know, but you made it sound as if HN was giving you information that you
couldn't have gotten from other sources, whereas in fact, in the particular
case we're discussing, just reading the news would have been sufficient.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Fair enough. The information about this case, as opposed to the original
story, didn't pop up in any other source I usually track, which provides an
interesting example of another phenomenon - controversial stories get spread
widely, but their retractions don't.

------
AdeptusAquinas
Seems like an effective way to teach the state not to be so
racist/reactionary. Assuming he wins. Of course the lawyers will no doubt take
most of it.

~~~
KevinEldon
Or effective bait for activists to troll public institutions for publicity and
cash settlements. Settlements paid by tax payers that take funds from
education, public safety, infrastructure, and other public insitutions.

------
gjkood
I see plenty of comments saying that the parents orchestrated this. If you
truly believe this, I can only assume that you are not now or never have been
a parent.

If you truly believe that a parent could send their child into a situation
where there is a high probability of a fatal or long term negative outcome for
the child, then you do not know what being a parent is.

There are plenty of bad parents, but believing this is orchestrated by the
parents is the height of cynicism.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _If you truly believe that a parent could send their child into a situation
> where there is a high probability of a fatal or long term negative outcome
> for the child, then you do not know what being a parent is._

I pass such "parents" on the street every day. Begging is an organized
operation in big cities in Poland, and there were reports that children are
actually drugged or fed alcohol, so that they're asleep. Fatalities happen.

There's a lot of sad stuff going on in this world.

