Off The Grid: Muslim Teen Falsely Accused of Making Bomb, Hillary Clinton and Obama Among His Supporters

Ahmed Mohamed is a 14-year-old high school student from Irving, Texas who aspires to be an engineer. Over the weekend he decided to take apart a clock and rebuild it inside his pencil case.

Proud of his accomplishment, he decided to take it to school on Monday to show his engineering teacher. That teacher advised him not to show it to anyone else. So Ahmed left it in his school bag until the alarm on it started beeping during his English class. That’s when he showed his English teacher the clock to explain what the beeping was. The teacher told him it looked like a bomb and confiscated it.

Later, Ahmed was pulled out of class by the principal and police, handcuffed and questioned. He explained it was just a clock that he had built over the weekend but police were not satisfied with his explanation.

"He would simply only tell us that it was a clock," police spokesman James McLellan says. "He didn't offer an explanation as to what it was for, why he created this device, why he brought it to school."

Mohamed’s family think that school officials and police overreacted claiming if it weren’t for his ethnicity and religion, this would have never happened.

"I think this wouldn't even be a question if his name wasn't Ahmed Mohamed," Alia Salem of the Dallas-Fort Worth chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations tells local news WFAA. "He is an excited kid who is very bright and wants to share it with his teachers."

A meeting is scheduled today for Mohamed’s parents and school officials with representatives from the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

UPDATE: Apparently President Obama also thought that Ahmed’s clock didn’t look like a bomb because the President invited Ahmed to bring it to the White House via Twitter:

Hillary Clinton also tweeted her support: