UPDATE 3:06 p.m.: Police have decided not to press any charges against Ahmed Mohammed for bringing a clock to school that teachers and police assumed was a bomb, according to The Dallas Morning News.
At a press conference held earlier today, Chief Larry Boyd said the device was revealed to be a science experiment after a follow-up investigation, noting there's no evidence to support the perception Mohamed intended to create alarm.
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Ahmed Mohamed, 14, was arrested by Texas police Monday after he brought a homemade clock to school that teachers and authorities mistook for a bomb.
The incident began Monday morning when Mohamed, who happens to be Muslim, first arrived at MacArthur High School in Irving. He had built a clock the previous evening in about 20 minutes, using a circuit board and power supply wired to a digital display, all strapped inside a case with a tiger hologram on the front, according to The Dallas Morning News.
Hoping to impress his teachers with his creation, he showed the clock to his engineering teacher but didn't quite get the reaction he was expecting.
"He was like, 'That's really nice,'" Mohamed said. "'I would advise you not to show any other teachers.'"
He stashed the clock away inside his backpack during English class, but the teacher became aware of it after it began to beep in the middle of a lesson, according to The Verge.
After class, he showed her the source of the disruption - the clock. However, she remarked that it looked like a bomb, and confiscated it from him.
"She was like - it looks like a bomb," he said.
Things soon took a turn for a worse later that day during sixth period when the principal and a police officer pulled Mohamed out of class. They allegedly led Ahmed into a room where four officers waited. One officer, according to Mohamed, even remarked: "Yep. That's who I thought it was," after seeing the boy genius for the first time.
After being interrogated and threatened with expulsion by his principal unless he made a written statement, Mohamed was led out of the school in handcuffs, according to the BBC.
I expect they will have more to say tomorrow, but Ahmed's sister asked me to share this photo. A NASA shirt! pic.twitter.com/nR4gt992gB
— Anil Dash (@anildash) September 16, 2015
Throughout questioning, Mohamed maintained that the device in question was merely a clock, however Irving police might still charge Ahmed with making a "hoax bomb," citing that the creation "could reasonably be mistaken as a device if left in a bathroom or under a car."
Ahmed was fingerprinted before being allowed to return home and is currently in the middle of a three- day suspension from school.
In light of this incident, Mohamed vowed to never take an invention to school again.
