Searing Letter Exposes Why Student Arrested for Homemade Clock Is Seeking $15M

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The family of the 14-year-old who made national headlines when he was arrested after his homemade clock was mistaken for a bomb is asking for a total of $15 million in damages from both the city and the school district where the incident took place. Otherwise, the boy’s family will file a civil suit, its lawyer says.

Ahmed Mohamed was a student in the Irving Independent School District when he brought a homemade clock to class in September. His intention was to share his creation with his teachers, his lawyer says. But one of those teachers notified school authorities, saying the clock’s wires indicated it could be an explosive. Ahmed was subsequently question and detained by authorities, despite his insistence that his contraption was nothing more than a clock. Despite a whirlwind national response, including an #IStandWithAhmed viral movement and a visit to the White House (the invitation was extended from President Obama via Twitter), Ahmed has since withdrawn from the school district and his family has moved to Qatar.

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Ahmed Mohamed with his father, Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed, in a September press conference. (Photo: Corbis Images)

In letters sent on Monday to both the City of Irving, Texas, and the school district, lawyer Kelly Hollingsworth has outlined all the ways in which the young student was mistreated. “Ahmed clearly was singled out because of his race, national origin, and religion,” she writes. “Irving Police officials immediately determined that the clock was harmless. The only reason for the overreaction was that the responsible adults involved irrationally assumed that Ahmed was dangerous because of his race, national origin, and religion. Let’s face it; if Ahmed’s clock were ‘Jennifer’s clock,’ and if the pencil case were ruby red bedazzled with a clear rhinestone skull and crossbones on the cover, this would never have happened.” Hollingsworth is referring to a pencil case that Ahmed used to hold his clock, which had a tiger hologram on the front.

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In the letters, Hollingsworth explains Ahmed’s intentions with the clock. “The Friday before the incident, Ahmed told some of his teachers…that he was going to build something over the weekend to show them and bring it for them to see on Monday,” the letters say. “This very much comports with Ahmed’s personality. He loves what we used to call ‘show and tell’ – bringing a unique or interesting item to school and showing it to his friends and teachers as a conversation piece.”

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The Mohamed family’s lawyer says Ahmed loves creating and sharing contraptions of his creation. (Photo: Corbis Images)

The family is seeking $10 million from the city and $5 million from the school district. According to the letters, the police illegally questioned Ahmed without his parents present and school officials tried to coerce a confession from the boy. The overall mishandling of the situation, the letters say, was intentional. “The school and city officials involved knew what they needed to do to protect Ahmed’s right,” the letters say. “They just decided not to do it.”

The letter to the city also calls attention to the fact that the world could see what a mess the school and police officials had made, which led officials to take the offensive. “United States Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once noted that, ‘Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants,’” Hollingsworth writes. “Intuitively understanding this, Ahmed’s sister took a picture of Ahmed in handcuffs and tweeted it out. Before long, and to the great dismay of the Irving authorities who caused this mess, the sunlight of global scrutiny shone bright on MacArthur High School and the City of Irving. … Knowing they could not really defend what they had done, City of Irving and Irving ISD officials chose another course: trash Ahmed.”

The ramifications of this incident will be with Ahmed long after the media has stopped talking about it, Hollingsworth says. “Ahmed also has suffered severe psychological trauma … This trauma has since been amplified due to the global media attention this incident has gathered,” she writes. “Ahmed and his siblings know that his life has inalterably changed. Ahmed will now forever be associated with bomb making wholly without basis. Many believe that Ahmed and his family are terrorists, similar to those responsible for the September 11th attacks on the Twin Towers.”

In addition to the $15 million Ahmed’s family is seeking for “compensation for the damages Ahmed suffered,” they are also asking for written apologies from the mayor, police chief and the school district, with acknowledgement that Ahmed never intended to harm or threaten anyone and that he was wrongfully treated. “If you fail to comply with the above demands within sixty days from the date of this letter, you should expect that we will file a civil action addressing the causes of action and events described in this letter,” Hollingsworth writes in both letters.

The school district told Reuters that they were reviewing the letter and would respond. City officials were not available to Reuters for comment.

(Top photo: AP)

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