Just Because It's Trending Doesn't Mean It's True

Obama Invites Muslim Teen Arrested For Clock At School To White House

  • by: Alan Duke
  • (Wed, 16 Sep 2015 16:09:19 Z)

Ahmed Mohamed's trip to juvenile detention has earned him a visit to the White House. President Obama extended the invitation via Twitter to the 14-year-old arrested after he proudly showed his teacher a clock he built at home.

"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 Wednesday.

The 9th grader at MacArthur High in Irving, Texas, was hauled off campus in handcuffs Monday after his English teacher saw the clock he put together from circuit boards, a digital display and a power supply. School officials immediately suspected Ahmed, a Muslim whose father immigrated from Sudan, had brought a bomb to school to kill them.

But he just likes to make and repair things, such as radios and his go-kart, according to the Dallas Morning News. He says he wanted to impress his teachers with his clock.

While he's not been charged with a crime, he did miss a student council meeting while sitting in juvenile detention.

On Wednesday, Mohamed appealed for public support via his Twitter account. #IStandWithAhmed quckly becamea top-trending Twitter hashtag.

The teen's family called the Council on American-Islamic Relations to help raise awareness to what they saw as a rise of Islamophobia in Irving, a suburb of Dallas, Texas.

He hinted that legal action could be coming against the school when he tweeted a photo with his sisters saying they were on the way to meet with a lawyer.

Lead Stories' Trendolizer constantly scours social nets for the latest content relating to Islamaphobia. Scroll down to see the latest.

About the author:

Editor-in-Chief Alan Duke co-founded Lead Stories after ending a 26-year career with CNN, where he mainly covered entertainment, current affairs and politics. Duke closely covered domestic terrorism cases for CNN, including the Oklahoma City federal building bombing, the UNABOMBER and search for Southeast bomber Eric Robert Rudolph. CNN moved Duke to Los Angeles in 2009 to cover the entertainment beat. Duke also co-hosted a daily podcast with former HLN host Nancy Grace, "Crime Stories with Nancy Grace" and hosted the podcast series "Stan Lee's World: His Real Life Battle with Heroes & Villains." You'll also see Duke in many news documentaries, including on the Reelz channel, CNN and HLN.

Read more about or contact Alan Duke