Irving Police Chief Larry Boyd held a press conference this morning to discuss the arrest of Ahmed Mohamed. According to Chief Boyd, Mohamed was arrested for bringing a hoax bomb to school and not a clock as he claimed.
Ahmed Mohamed, a freshman at Irving MacArthur High School, said he took an electronic clock he built over the weekend to school Monday morning to show his first period engineering teacher his skill with making things.
"I wanted to start clean with the teacher by showing him my inventions and stuff," Mohamed said.
Mohamed said problems arose when the clock rang in his back pack in class with a second teacher later in the day. He said he showed that teacher the device after other students had left the room.
Mohamed said police handcuffed him and took him to Irving police headquarters for interrogation, fingerprints and mug shots. He said his family surname repeatedly came up in police questioning.
Irving police released a report Tuesday that lists three MacArthur High teachers as complainants against the teen on the charge of “hoax bomb.” Irving Police Officer James McLellan said school officials simply thought the device was suspicious and acted out of caution.
“The follow-up investigation revealed it was apparently a homemade experiment and there’s no evidence to support the perception he intended to create alarm,” said Larry Boyd, the Irving police chief.
“The Irving police department has always experienced an outstanding relationship with our Muslim community,” Boyd said. “We recognize that situations like this present challenges but we’re committed to continuing to build that positive relationship.”
The case is considered closed by the Police Department.
“I don’t want to see anybody go through what I went through,” Ahmed Mohamed said.
Boyd was questioned by the audience as to whether the case would have been handled different if the teen was white. He responded that the reaction would have been the same regardless of the student's skin color.
