As you may have already noticed, on Wednesday Sept. 16 a story surfaced of a fourteen-year-old ninth-grader, Ahmed Mohamed, being arrested in Irving, TX, from his high school. Ahmed Mohamed just started at MacArthur High School a few weeks prior to the incident. He has always had a knack for tinkering with devices: taking electronics/mechanisms apart and putting them back together, to allegedly building a Bluetooth speaker as a gift from a friend. This is the child who was arrested for bringing a homemade clock to school in hopes to impress and show his new teachers his skills.

Originally, he showed his Engineering teacher who responded wary and warned Ahmed not to show any other teachers. During his English class, now a different teacher, heard it beep and this clearly annoyed her. He brought the invention up to her after class to which she responded, “It looks like a bomb,” according to Ahmed.

Shortly after her confiscating the clock, Ahmed was pulled from his classes by his principal and an Irving police officer. They took him to a room [in MacArthur High School] where four officers were waiting.

“They interrogated me and searched through my stuff and took my tablet and my invention…They were like, ‘So you tried to make a bomb?’ I told them no, I was trying to make a clock.”– Ahmed Mohamed, The Washington Post

Mohammed was quickly taken to police headquarters, handcuffed and fingerprinted. He was released after the Irvin Police determined neither he, nor the device, posed any threat.

Finally, there are some crucial reasons you should reflect and stand on the right side of history; standing on the side with Ahmed Mohamed:

• 1. The crystal-clear Islamophobia and disregard for protocol exhibited by the Irvin Police Officers:
  • When Ahmed entered the room with four officers at school, one officer said, “That’s who I thought it was.” This officer is inferring this fourteen-year-old boy with thick wire-framed glasses and a NASA T-shirt is who automatically exhibits a ‘terrorist profile.’ Thanks to this officer’s brilliant deduction, we now know that ISIS will most likely be an underclassman in high-school who probably hasn’t even hit puberty yet.
  • “Innocent until proven guilty,” was completely thrown out the window by the officers automatically saying, “So you tried to make a bomb?” rather than just asking what the device was and its functions.
  • The officers never let Ahmed call his parents, even though he is a legal minor. When questioned about this, Irvin Police Chief Larry Boyd said he did “not have answers to your specific question.” Gotcha. So, let’s recap: The Chief of the Irving Police Department who answers for his subordinates’ actions did not have the answers? How convenient.
• 2. If The White House (President Obama, specifically) and the CEO of Facebook disagree with this: it doesn’t mean you should agree, but you should definitely question:
  
  • Shortly after the story going viral with the hashtag #IstandwithAhmed, US President Barack Obama tweeted his sentiments:
  • Facebook SEO Mark Zuckerberg also shared his opinion on the matter:
• 3. If you still think Ahmed was wrong please ask yourself this: if this was your child who was arrested at age 14, with not a cruel bone in their body that you know to be true, would you feel differently?
  • At this point, given the evidence presented, if you don’t stand with Ahmed: you’re standing against what individualizes this country from the rest…our opportunity to let those with creative solutions thrive to make things better and arrive closer to our pursuit of happiness.