I've always maintained that it could go either way based on what we know. It just feels like there's more to the story than the media presented to get most people to foam at the mouth.

Nope, gone from our social awareness like the puff piece it actually was.

As any logical person should, as there are massive holes in the story.

lol no he just doesn't feel like playing today.

Hard to play when you have no game.

Where the hell you at bruh, I responded.

I'm on my way fam, see ya soon. Let's go get some Froyo, yo.

His points seem more than reasonable.

i just don't get how anyone can believe that. A serious response like that usually has serious reasons behind it, and that is what is actually reasonable to assume. Without clear evidence of racism (like slurs), it's not logical to blame the reaction on racism with the details we know.

You seem like an authoritarian apologist who doesn't give a shit that your previous "points" were rebutted

What was rebutted? That the device was sketchy? That he was told not to show it to others and he ignored that?

All I've maintained is that the whole situation seems very strange and that there's no way to know whether the reaction was justified given the details that have come out.

He doesn't have a valid point so he blocked me, lol.

Possibly, or maybe he was truly a disruptive presence in the school. People love to jump on the outrage wagon, though, so the media plays it up.

The true test will be in whether or not there's a lawsuit and the outcome of that. I haven't read anything that suggests the parents are going to sue, which also sounds fishy to me. Sounds like they'd get a nice settlement to me as the district wouldn't want to go to court if they couldn't show the kid had behavioral problems.

what do you mean he didn't make anything? shit, as a 23 yr old i couldn't wire a circuit board to anything to save my ass lol.

He unscrewed the case to a clock and shoved the components in a pencil box. No wiring at all. Here's a video showing what he did:

also i like how you're trying to say that we can't draw conclusions based on not knowing his behavioral history but you're over here willy nilly saying things about how he must have been intentionally disruptive. i've seen nothing suggesting either way that he was more or less disruptive than your average kid.

My point is that it could go either way and generally things don't get such a response for no reason.

Do you really live in fear of unsecured 9V batteries?

Of course not, just pointing out that the device was sketchy at best.

"Wait, is that true?" No, I lied. I made it up. I stated something as fact so that maybe you'd accept it at face value and not notice that my entire point is based on falsehood.

I'm confused. I would say you're being sarcastic but nothing in your comment nor the link you provided says it was a project for school.

He said an officer he’d never seen before leaned back in his chair and remarked: “Yup. That’s who I thought it was.”

Ahmed felt suddenly conscious of his brown skin and his name — one of the most common in the Muslim religion.

Is he the only brown-skinned child in his school? Because this statement could be considered racist if that's the case....or it still could be because the kid is actually a known trouble-maker and has had similar issues before. Just because the kid claims he hadn't seen the officer before does not mean it's true. He also claimed he invented the clock.

Even if the officer had not seen the kid before he may have heard about the child if he was causing trouble from other officers.

But you know what? If I were "suspicious" about something, I might read about it a little more instead of questioning the veracity of people who demonstrably know more than you.

You're right. Your one friend's anecdotal experiences makes you demonstrably more knowledgeable about a case that we've both read the same information about and you still make statements about that you can't verify.

He's a 14 year old kid that actually didn't make anything and was told not to show it to others because he might get in trouble and ignored that statement. I suspect the teacher knew he was going to be disruptive (probably based on previous behavior), and really should have held onto the clock until the end of the day to prevent an issue. Does the reaction seem overblown: yes. Does that actually mean we can call it a 100% inappropriate response without knowing all the details and the kid's behavioral history: no.

A 9V battery in a backpack is orders of magnitude less dangerous than a cell phone in a backpack. 9Vs can get hot enough to smoke. LiPo can get hot enough to explode. Yet we put up with cell phone batteries by the dozens in every classroom.

In this case the wires and boards were unsecured and could easily have shorted, unlike in a cell phone. Had he plugged it in there's an unprotected transformer floating around in the case.

You're missing the fact that the kid brought in a project for a class, got credit for that project, and was told "don't show that to anybody" by his teacher.

Wait, is that true? Nothing I've read said anything about it being a project.

And then, rather than having anyone ask that teacher about the pencil case full of clock parts, the school district called in five cops.

You missed the part where the kid continued to show the clock to others and then set the clock to go off during another class after being told not to show anyone else.

Not the bomb squad, mind you.

No, because the kid was trying to cause a disruption with a suspicious device, not with a bomb.

Doesn't the whole incident seem suspicious? The kid's behavior, the response, it really seems like there's more behind the story and I wouldn't be surprised to find out that the kid has been disruptive in a similar manner before. It's the only explanation that makes any sense.

You're right, it won't shock you but if it shorts the battery itself may become hot and could potentially breach. Pretty rare but possible. One of the components may get too much power running through it from a short which would cause that component to heat up and possibly spark, as well.

By focusing so much on Ahmed and how people are fixing Ahmed's situation, we're ignoring everyone else that racism affects. I don't know, I just feel like people will be satisfied by seeing Ahmed happy and whatever that they'll forget about the systemic problems and nothing will change.

I think the kid purposefully provoked the administration into responding through prompting from his father. I believe that had any other child had shifty-looking electronics in a bag that he showed off to people and then sets the alarm on it to go off during class is looking for a reaction and would have been dealt with in a similar manner. Only by insisting that the administration reacted due to racism makes this a race issue.

No one mentions the risk of electrocution or fire from a short were he to plug his device into a socket with all the boards unsecured like that, heck even the 9v supply it must have been running on in his backpack could have started a fire with a short. A device like that is sketchy and unsafe and he purposefully kept bringing attention to it, that's all that matters in this case. Not his skin color.