A high school freshman at MacArthur High School in Irving, Texas, was detained and taken into custody for bringing a clock that he had made to school to show his science teachers.
The young man, who excels at science, was apparently questioned for hours at a juvenile detention center before his parents were allowed to take him home.
Irving Police spokesman Officer James McLellan issued a statement saying, “We attempted to question the juvenile about what it was and he would simply only tell us that it was a clock.”
That would be, perhaps, because it WAS a clock.
After the story blew up, President Obama invited the student to come to the White House, and Hillary Clinton encouraged him to "stay curious and keep building." Additionally, he has been invited to Facebook headquarters and to NASA.
His sisters set up a Twitter account for their brother, which instantly ballooned to over 27,000 followers.
Why, you have to wonder, would a science project garner such a knee jerk reaction from the authorities?
Oh - did I mention the student's name is Ahmed Mohamed?
No. No racial profiling going on there. Uh-uh.
Responding to the outpouring of support, the high school freshman tweeted, "Thank you for your support! I really didn't think people would care about a muslim boy."
I don't know about you, but I find that heartbreaking.
Imagine if the boy had been a blond, blue-eyed kid named John Smith.
A few years ago, a white All-American boy named Taylor Wilson built a nuclear reactor at his home and actually received encouragement from the Department of Energy. Wilson was never detained or questioned by the authorities, mind you.
You can see Ahmed tell his story to the Dallas Morning News below.
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