Ahmed Mohamed: Keira Wilmot, Florida Teen Arrested In 2013, Has A Message For Ahmed Mohamed

A girl from Florida faced a similar issue that Ahmed Mohamed is facing now. Keira Wilmot from Lakeland, Fla. was arrested two years ago in a case similar to the plight of the 14-year-old Muslim student who was taken into police custody for bringing a homemade clock to his school, which was previously reported by HNGN.

"When I read the story about Ahmed...I said 'Oh my gosh, how could this happen again?'" Wilmot said, according to ABC News. "[In my case] sometimes I think it was racial profiling and sometimes I think it was just ignorance."

Wilmot was arrested in April 2013 for bringing her own advanced makeshift volcano science project to school and was about to show how it works to her teacher. "He said he needed to approve it first, so I brought it in thinking he literally needed to see it in person."

Wilmot showed how her project works outside the Bartow High School cafeteria when its lid took off and the bottom of the project started smoking. She was then approached by school officials and was eventually brought to the juvenile detention center under bomb charges.

"I cried as soon as they told me," she said, ABC News reported. "As they were fingerprinting and taking mugshots I said 'Oh my gosh, I'm an actual criminal. I know I didn't do anything wrong, but I felt like I had to believe I did something wrong."

Wilmot was then suspended for 10 days and was under scrutiny and candidate for expulsion. She was charged with two felonies that were eventually dropped after the public outcry against it. The school administrators never apologized for the incident and former schoolmates continued to judge her. "There were a few students who started a beef with me, they'd say stuff like 'next time you plan to blow up the school, let us know' and that kind of thing," Wilmot said, according to Slate.

"I still have people who harass me about it and call me a terrorist, but I've moved on," she added. "I got a scholarship to space camp and got to meet Homer Hickam, who's my hero."

Wilmot, who is now 19-years-old, also has a message for the young Ahmed Mohamed. "I'd like to tell him that he's got to move forward and rise up out of this. He can show everyone he can't be brought down by what happened and make something good of this."

Mohamed has been invited to the White House by the president and to Facebook headquarters by Mark Zuckerberg, HNGN reported.

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