Yeah, pretty much a dead cert they’re not going to arrest a white kid named John Anderson for making a clock.
But you know, like they intimated in questioning him - brown kid, named “Mohammed”, muslim, must be a terrorist.
Wow, that is awesome. Seriously.
But why? Why is that?
Sure. They arrested a white kid for writing an essay about shooting a dinosaur with a gun. But making a clock - no, they wouldn’t.
I’ve heard a couple of stories about getting in trouble for hoax guns–that story about a gun killing a dinosaur and a kid nibbling a poptart in the shape of a gun. Those kids got in trouble for that, but one difference is that they actually were saying they were guns. If the school has a no gun anything policy, then getting in trouble for making a fake gun and writing about guns isn’t so unreasonable. Ahmed’s situation is more like he’s eating a poptart normally and an administrator pulls it out of his mouth and suspends him because it just happened to end up in the shape of a gun.
From Ahmed’s situation, I don’t recall where he said or acted like it was a bomb. I don’t recall his friends saying he said it was a bomb. Sure, it does have some passing similarity to a movie bomb, but I most disassembled electronics would look the same.
I think Freud said, “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” If someone sees every phallic shape as a penis, then they will infer a lot of incorrect meaning to objects. It’s the same thing here. If people see every brown-skinned Muslim as a terrorist, they will infer incorrect meanings to their actions.
The Pop Tart kid was disciplined for disrupting the classroom after a history of disruption issues. As the teacher explained, he could have chewed it into a cat shape and ran around going “meow meow” and the response would have been the same.
The Dinosaur kid got in trouble with the police when he started causing trouble in the principal’s office. The police started that the story had nothing to do with it, it was his behavior.
Ahmed’s situation was that he was in trouble and arrested specifically for the clock. A much different situation than the other kids.
It was no doubt because of Texas law
WHich part of Texas Law did Ahmed violate?
Be specific please -
Have you proved he intended to create a hoax bomb with the intention of deceiving anyone that it was dangerous device?
He *must *have intended to “make another believe that the hoax bomb is an explosive or incendiary device”, because that’s the effect he had. It couldn’t have been that the school and the PD are full of idiots. He was, after all, arrested for not admitting it.
You have to have proof in order to convict. In order to arrest, you have to have probable cause.
At any point during the day, did anyone at the school or elsewhere act as if the device were a bomb or intended to be a bomb?
Did Ahmend, at any point of the day, act like the device was antyhing other than a clock?
Where was the ‘probable’ cause?
As has been cited multiple times in this thread, Texas law does not require intent for something to be a hoax bomb, but all offenses related to hoax bombs require the prosecution to prove intent. No intent, no offense.
Those questions are irrelevant to the law cited. The relevant question is:
Did the device “cause alarm or reaction of any type by an official of a public safety agency”? If the answer is “yes”, then there is your probable cause for arrest. Now, in order to convict, you would have to prove the intent to cause such an alarm or reaction.
Since there was no offense - no arrest should have been made.
The intent behind that rule is to prevent someone avoiding behing charged by saying “hoax” and to add an element specific to bombs (to increase the charge).
As has also been said - ANYTHING can be a “hoax bomb” - but it takes intent to make it such - leaving a ‘backpack’ unattended can get treated as a “hoax bomb” and then the person charged if sufficient. (based on intent) - but it would be called a ‘hoax bomb’ until that was determined.
There was no hoax bomb here - in theory or practice.
At what point during the day did anyone determine that it was a ‘hoax bomb’ ? Since there was no actions (left alone, left behind, stated intent, etc) by Ahmed to allow it to beome a “hoax bomb” - it was always just a clock.
Where was the “Alarm” or “reaction” ?
Well, the principal did call the police and the police were **alarmed **enough to **react **by questioning and arresting the student.
A teacher looked at it. That’s a reaction!
Of course, a bored shrug would also be a “reaction”…
but not alarmed enough to react and clear the building or call in a bomb squad.
So - doesn’t quite follow, does it?
Just FTR I do not believe there was probable cause sufficient to warrant making an arrest.