Safety First: Life in the 21st Century

Suppose you're a high school English teacher. You probably have a bachelor's degree in English literature, or communications, or maybe journalism. You probably have read Shakespeare, and Chaucer, and maybe you watch Benedict Cumberbatch on the BBC's TV series "Sherlock." You probably took biology and chemistry ten or more years ago, when you yourself were a high school student. But odds are you've never seen an actual bomb before.

But you have seen the news. Oklahoma City. Columbine. The World Trade Center. Virginia Tech. Aurora. Sandy Hook. Isla Vista. The Boston Marathon. You live in a strange time where kids aren't safe at school, or day care, or the movie theater, or at a marathon.

So, when a 14-year-old comes to class hiding a small briefcase containing wires and a digital counter in his backpack, what do you do?

Understandably, people are upset that the teenager was treated as though he was a criminal rather than the budding engineer that he is. It has been suggested that the color of Ahmed Mohamed's skin had more to do with the school calling the police than the contraption he built; after all, news sources have pointed out, other kids have brought homemade clocks to school without repercussions.

The news sources have neglected to point out, however, that all of the students being named -- Peter Mathis, Haley Zinke, Tasha Williams, Logan Weimer, Tori Clark, Indy Brumbraugh, Cesar Lemas -- had brought their clocks to school for class projects, not on a random school day.

Even the teenager from Colorado who brought an inert bomb to school had built it for a science fair project with the permission of his teacher. The project was publicly displayed before someone decided it was a danger to the student body and called the police.

New York Times, January 18, 2002.


Mohamed's clock was made in his own time, and he brought it to school on a regular day, when teachers would not expect to see students carrying science projects. He was told by his science teacher to hide the device in his bag, which further added to the peculiarity of the day's events; in all likelihood the entire situation could have been avoided if the science teacher -- who must have known about Mohamed's interest in engineering and may have been able to recognize the device as a digital clock -- had taken the device from Mohamed for safe-keeping and returned it to him at the end of the day. Instead, Mohamed was allowed to roam around the school with a device which was later mistaken for a bomb.

News sources are also doubting that a clock built by a child could be mistaken for a bomb. But given past incidents of objects being mistaken for bombs, it doesn't seem that surprising.

In 2007, Turner Broadcasting Systems paid Peter Berdovsky & Sean Stevens to hang light-up signs around Boston as a guerilla ad campaign for the upcoming Aqua Team Hunger Force movie release. The signs were reported by civilians to the police, who determined the signs had all the characteristics of improvised explosive devices: wires, batteries, circuit boards, and electrical tape.


Fox News report during the 2007 Boston Bombing Scare.

The bomb squad's removal of the suspected explosive devices (and the potential for a lawsuit) resulted in a $2 mil donation from Turner Broadcasting to the Boston Bomb Squad and Homeland Security. Berkovsky and Stevens were arrested and charged with the felony of placing hoax devices and a misdemenor of disorderly conduct. They pleaded not guilty, and the charges were eventually dropped in exchange for 140 hours of community service.


  
Which looks more like a bomb? (engadget.com & bbc.com)

If a bomb squad can confuse a lite-brite sign with a bomb, it isn't hard to see why an English teacher could confuse the device built by Mohamed for one as well.

Others are also upset because Mohamed was questioned by police without his parents being present. But in the case of a suspected school bombing, there is a public safety issue which police must handle immediately. If authorities have reason to believe other bombs may have been placed and are ready to detonate, then their duty is to the civilians who will be injured, not the suspect in custody.

This is why Boston Marathon Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was questioned for hours after his arrest without being Mirandized and despite his request for a lawyer. Had another bomb detonated in Boston while Tsarnaev waited for the arrival of his lawyer, people could have died and the police would be considered negligent.


The Tavistock Square Bus Bombing occurred an hour after the London Underground Bombings. Knowledge of this bomb could have saved 13 civilian lives. Photo from the Daily Mail. 

Did the authorities have reason to believe Mohamed had made and placed other devices around the school? Did the authorities legitimately confuse the device for a potential threat, or even a so-called "hoax device" which still carries felony charges? We may never know.

But did the teacher who reported the device to the principal do the right thing? It is fair to say that given the circumstances, the sad fact is that recent events would lead us all to do the same. And as any science inclined high-schooler knows, objects in motion stay in motion; once the call is made, the police are sure to become involved and they have to respond as if all concerns are warranted.

Maybe more time should be spent teaching common sense. If the science teacher was concerned enough to tell Mohamed to hide the device, maybe it should have been taken from him before someone mistook it for a bomb. If a child wants to impress a teacher with his knowledge of electronics, maybe he should save it for science-fair day. And if the principal sees fit to call the police on a child, maybe the parents should be the principal's next call.