Irving, Texas Mayor Beth Van Duyne is defending law enforcement and school officials who were involved in the arrest and suspension of Ahmed Mohamed, a Muslim 14-year-old ninth-grader who brought a homemade clock to school that teachers mistook for a bomb.

"I do not fault the school or the police for looking into what they saw as a potential threat," Van Duyne wrote in a statement posted to her Facebook page Wednesday.

Van Duyne said school and law enforcement officials were simply following school protocols when a "possible threat" or "criminal act" is discovered.

"To the best of my knowledge, they followed protocol for investigating whether this was an attempt to bring a Hoax Bomb to a school campus," Van Duyne wrote. "I hope this incident does not serve as a deterrent against our police and school personnel from maintaining the safety and security of our schools."

Ahmed, who told The Dallas Morning News that he loves robotics and tinkering with gadgets, decided to build a clock by linking a circuit board, a power supply and a digital clock display together inside a pencil case. He thought he might impress some teachers by bringing the clock to school.  

Instead, he found himself pulled out of class and taken to the principal's office, where he says he was threatened with expulsion and interrogated -- all the while insisting that he had, in fact, only built a clock. School officers sent him to a detention center, where they took his fingerprints and a mugshot. He was later released to his parents and all charges were dropped against him when police realized the clock wasn't a bomb after all.

Ahmed was suspended for three days from MacArthur High School by Irving School District administrators.

“We have all seen terrible and violent acts committed in schools," Van Duyne added. "Perhaps some of those could have been prevented and lives could have been spared if people were more vigilant."

Later, Van Duyne edited this portion of her Facebook statement, removing the language and replacing it with somewhat softer tones, but still offered no apology to Ahmed or his family, and refrained from using Ahmed's name. She instead referred to him as simply "the student."

"As a parent, I agree that if this happened to my child I would be very upset," Van Duyne wrote in an updated statement. "It is my sincere desire that Irving ISD students are encouraged to use their creativity, develop innovations and explore their interests in a manner that fosters higher learning. Hopefully, we can all learn from this week’s events and the student, who has obvious gifts, will not feel at all discouraged from pursuing his talent in electronics and engineering."

Meanwhile, other politicians like President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as well as high-profile scientists, have rallied around Ahmed and his passion for science.

The Dallas Morning News recently described Van Duyne as being "a hero among the fringe movement that believes Muslims -- a tiny fraction of the U.S. population -- are plotting to take over American culture and courts." This reputation ballooned earlier this year after she announced she was looking into rumors that a local mosque was attempting to establish the first court of "Sharia law," the Muslim code of law and morality, in Irving. Politifact later rated this claim as false, detailing that some regional Muslims were offering "Sharia-governed, non-binding mediation services" in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, including Irving, but no Sharia court was being opened in town. About a month later, she supported a bill that would forbid Texas judges from using foreign law in their rulings, which is already illegal.

Critics of Van Duyne call her actions anti-Islamic, but Van Duyne says she's simply "proud to be an American" and just supporting the constitutions of the United States and Texas.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/irving-mayor-defends-school-and-cops_55f9dbc0e4b08820d917310e?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592

Does that mean if I wear a wristwatch to school I will be arrested?

By Lisa Fogarty, Mon, November 3, 2014
A 14-year-old boy from Amarillo, Texas, was reportedly hurt by a police officer after he refused to remove his rosary beads at a middle school football game Wednesday night.

Jacob Herrera’s mother Lori Martinez says her son was approached by officer Corporal Wilson and told to take off his rosary bead necklace. A witness named Marivell Chavez says the teen was then held to the ground, where she says he shouted, “call my mom” and “I can’t breathe,” reports Newschannel10.com.

“You know he handcuffed him and then crossed him across the street right there and slammed him again and he repeatedly slammed the child on the floor,” Chavez said.

But a spokesperson for the Amarillo Police Department denies the allegations and says the officer acted accordingly after the teen began fighting with him and refusing to remove the beads. Rosaries are reportedly a symbol of an association with a gang, and though police say they aren’t accusing Jacob of having gang ties, the religious item is prohibited at school events.




“He was fighting with the officer, he wouldn’t comply with the commands, he wouldn’t put his arms behind his back,” said Cpl Jerry Neufeld. “The officer used a couple of different compliance holds to try and get him to put his hands behind his back, he did not deploy his taser, he just tried to get him under control. They rolled on the ground for several minutes.”

Martinez says her son is not a gang member and that he wears the rosary because it has sentimental value to him after the death of his sibling. Jacob is currently being held at the Youth Center of High Plains. Some of his friends at Amarillo ISD and other parents who say they witnessed the confrontation wore rosaries Thursday to symbolize their demand for justice for the student.

But Jacob’s school seems to be sticking with the law on this one.

Amarillo ISD released the following statement: “Last night at one of our schools, a student was identified as being in violation of the dress code for wearing an item in a manner which is considered to be gang related by local and national law enforcement. A school administrator and liaison officer asked the student to either comply with the dress code rules or leave school property. The student repeatedly refused to comply with either option. At that time, the student was arrested for trespassing.”

Update

A response via Cpl. Jerry Neufeld of the Amarillo Police Department:


AND NOT A PEEP FROM OBAMA OR HILLARY

That is because Catholics of hispanic descent are not considered to be citizens of this country.

That boy who was a Muslim who built that "clock" knew it would cause problems.  
It looked like a bomb; not a clock.   It was most likely a stunt that was created by the democrats just like so many other diversions or agenda. It was no fluke that Sandra fluke was causing problems at Catholic college.  The democrat play games. Does anyone remember the former New Jersey Catholic governor Jim McGreevey who was married with kids Ended up being a ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ.
The democrats also move liberals to conservative areas.
Who ever would attend SSpX in Kansas and then host a pro abortion female candidate.
That was planned.  

Obama commented  because Trevon Martin was a diversion from march in dc against his healthcare which is a failure.  Obama never commented about NJ little girl who was murdered and stuffed in trash can by two black boys.  

Obama is a hateful and vengeful person.
 He says nothing against the race riots.   Michelle and Obama are racists and make comments to divide a country.

Fake Hate? Is Clock Kid Furor All A Big Setup?
Muslim kid's father is a prominent 'anti-Islamophobia' activist; Police knew there was no danger, but arrested Ahmed Mohamed anyway
http://www.infowars.com/fake-hate-is-clock-kid-furor-all-a-big-setup/

Fake Hate? Is Clock Kid Furor All A Big Setup?
Muslim kid's father is a prominent 'anti-Islamophobia' activist; Police knew there was no danger, but arrested Ahmed Mohamed anyway
http://www.infowars.com/fake-hate-is-clock-kid-furor-all-a-big-setup/

If the police knew there was no danger then tehy were stupid to make the arrerst.

Texas police will review decisions made when a Muslim teenager was taken away in handcuffs after high school staff mistook his homemade clock for a bomb, the Irving police chief said on Friday.

"One thing is clear to me, regardless of what we did, no matter what decision was made, there would've been people who agreed with it and people who disagreed with it," police Chief Larry Boyd told CNN.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations said Ahmed Mohamed, 14, is Muslim and the case was an example of the climate of hate and manufactured fear around the religion.

The bespectacled ninth grader in a NASA T-shirt was led away in handcuffs from MacArthur High School on Monday after school officials discovered the clock.

By Wednesday, the Dallas-area student had become an Internet sensation and won several invitations, including one from President Barack Obama to visit the White House.

"The officers made the best decision they thought that they could make at that time, based on the information that they had," Boyd said.

"Of course we will review this. Of course we want to go back and look at this and all the decision points and all the alternatives, and make sure we give our officers the best guidance we possibly can because this won't be the last controversial decision that they have to make."

After school resource officers determined the device was not a bomb, Boyd said, officers investigated whether Mohamed brought the device to school with the intent to create alarm. Boyd said it was against the law to make a hoax bomb and cause people to be scared and call law enforcement.

The school principal or vice principal and officers talked to Mohamed as they tried to figure out what was happening, Boyd said.

"There were factors and details to this that for whatever reason weren't shared at the time," Boyd said. "Once we were able to get all of that information, that allowed us to get to the point where we could settle the matter."

No charges were filed and police said they considered the case closed.

http://news.yahoo.com/police-review-handling-texas-student-handcuffed-over-clock-150026030--finance.html

I remember when I was in High School a fellow student brought a
unloaded snipers rifle on a bus and showed it off at school, and
returned home with the rifle on the same bus. In those days, campus
cops were unheard of. Police were not called. No one was afraid.
This happened before the assassination of JFK.
The rifle belong to his Dad's guns collection and was captured
from a German sniper during WW2.
This shows how far we have come.
If this happened today. With all the criminal charges that would
also involved his Father. He will be lucky if would get out of prison
at age 50.