Ahmed Mohamed, 14, arrested over clock mistaken for bomb. Reasonable precaution or massive overreaction?

I have to ask,,, As you clearly KNOW the item in question was a clock.. Why did YOU choose to to use a picture depicting a bomb?
I can assume many negative things, or just assume you cared not to consider what your choice implies about your position on the topic.. But Id prefer to hear it from you SrA Edward Vong

Thanks

First name 'Ahmed' last name 'Mohamed' and he looks Middle-Eastern. He never had a chance.

Lets take a second and consider all things here. The incident was close to the anniversary of 9/11 (poor timing, likely not on the mind of our youth). Most of our average Americans knowledge of electronics/electrical systems are cloaked by attractive plastic and displays. Pop culture has portrayed many mobile bombs to be located in briefcases.

Now enter the situation after our populace is reminded about the events that changed the world in 2001, a young adult brings a brief case to school to show a teacher a clock he had built. Other teachers/students see a briefcase with wires and some circuit boards and worry, they call the police (if they don't have a resource officer(s) assigned to the school). They also become worried about the whole situation.
I understand where they are coming from, this should have been handled differently but you can't undo the past, you can only move forward and right wrongs and adjust policy based on fact/past events.
This also brings me to Teachers knowing their students, if they knew more about them not only would this prevent a situation like this, they could also foster more care and could elevate the learning of these students...

I served with a guy named usuma Ahmed his only ambition was to learn Combat Engineering and go home to defend his homeland against you know who.

I'd say that clock does look like a suspicious device. I can understand the confusion and the concern for safety. It was a mistake on the part of authorities, but if the clock had been a bomb and had injured students, we'd be having a completely different discussion. Better safe than sorry, and an apology to Ahmed should suffice. IMHO, this story is being way overblown to make a political point.

I'm neither for nor against this issue, but in the defense of the teachers and officers involved, would you feel safe if a kid brought something that actually looked like a bomb, but the teachers insisted that there was no way a young high school kid would know how to build a bomb and didn't think anything more of it?

I've never seen any negative feedback about the military, I've started to wonder if that's the media just trying to make stories. I'm going to school and I see a lot of veterans using the GI bill. I get asked and I see them get asked.

It doesn't mention one thing. Did he let his teacher know he was bringing it? I was in drama club in high school and brought props in all the time. If I didn't let the principal and teachers know in advance that I was bringing questionable items, I got in trouble.

Airport security would probably lose their minds if it was brought in willy nilly but as far as the White House goes, if the president asked and actually made arrangements so he wasn't harassed then I don't see why he would get stopped.

The difference is, unless the individual is transporting a national science project, there is no reason to bring that device on to an aircraft. A kid wanted to show off his project to a teacher. The reaction is understandable, what it led to was unnecessary.

It depends. I tried to look into this more and sort of ran into dead ends. Was there a science project related assignment? Or something that this fit into? A shop/electronics class? If not then bringing it to school was silly and with how it looks I don't think that has anything to do with his background.