WASHINGTON
President Obama on Wednesday voiced support for a Muslim teen arrested for taking a homemade clock to school.
"Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It's what makes America great" Obama tweeted.
The American president’s tweet came after #IStandwithAhmed became a top trending topic worldwide.
Several famous figures also tweeted support for Ahmed Mohamed, including Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
"Assumptions and fear don't keep us safe—they hold us back. Ahmed, stay curious and keep building," Clinton said on her Twitter account.
Mohamed was detained in Irving, a suburb of Dallas, Texas, when he took homemade clock to his school Monday, the Dallas Morning Post said.
The 14-year-old, who has a passion for building radios and repairing electronic toys, had hoped to impress his teachers at MacArthur High School.
He was arrested at the school and led out in handcuffs, taken to a juvenile detention center where he was fingerprinted and met by his parents. He was subsequently suspended from school.
The story has raised once more the issue of Islamaphobia in the U.S. The Council on American-Islamic Relations is investigating this case, according to a local CBS affiliate.
“Here in high school, none of the teachers know what I can do,” Mohamed told a Post reporter in an interview shared on YouTube.
He said he showed it to his engineering teacher and the teacher told him not to show it to others.
He kept the clock inside his school bag but during English class the clock’s alarm beeped twice. After the teacher inquired, Mohamed decided to show his invention.
“She was like, it looks like a bomb,” he said. “I told her, ‘It doesn’t look like a bomb to me.’”
While being interrogated at the police station, Mohamed said that the school’s principal threatened to expel him if he didn’t make a written statement.
“They were like, ‘So you tried to make a bomb?’” he said. “I told them no, I was trying to make a clock, but he kept on saying, ‘it looks like a movie bomb to me.’”
Police spokesman James McLellan told local newspapers that police have no reason to think the homemade clock was dangerous, but they need a "broader explanation” for the device.
“It could reasonably be mistaken as a device if left in a bathroom or under a car. The concern was, what was this thing built for?" he said.
Irving police on Wednesday held a press conference, after the case garnered international attention, to announce the investigation has been finalized.
“The follow-up investigation revealed it was apparently a homemade experiment and there’s no evidence to support the perception he intended to create alarm,” said Larry Boyd, the Irving police chief.
Boyd also said that he would meet with Mohamed’s father later Wednesday but declined to give specifics about where the meeting would take place or who else would attend.
“The Irving police department has always experienced an outstanding relationship with our Muslim community,” Boyd said. “We recognize that situations like this present challenges but we’re committed to continuing to build that positive relationship.”
Irving’s school district declined a request to comment by the Anadolu Agency but in a letter to parents said police were investigating a “suspicious looking item”.
The school’s principal, Daniel Cummings, told families that the district took safety seriously. “Please rest assured that we will always take necessary steps to keep our school safe,” he said, and recommended urged parents to warn children not to bring items to the school that are prohibited.
“This is a good time to remind your child how important it is to immediately report any suspicious items and/or suspicious behavior they observe to any school employee so we can address right away,” he wrote.
This is not the first time Mohamed’s family has been in the national spotlight. The teen is the son of Sudanese Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed who once made national headlines for debating a Florida pastor who burned a Quran.
The elder Mohamed has also run for Sudanese president several times.
