Ahmed Mohamed clock incident
incident in which a child was arrested for bringing clock parts to school
On September 14, 2015, 14-year-old Ahmed Mohamed was arrested at MacArthur High School in Irving, Texas, for bringing a disassembled digital clock to school. The incident ignited allegations of racial profiling and Islamophobia from many media sources and commentators.
The episode arose when Mohamed reassembled the parts of a digital clock in an 8-inch (20 cm) pencil case and brought it to school to show his teachers. His English teacher thought the device resembled a bomb, confiscated it, and reported him to the principal. The local police were called, and they questioned him for an hour and a half. He was handcuffed, taken into custody and transported to a juvenile detention facility, where he was fingerprinted and his mug shot was taken. He was then released to his parents. According to local police, they arrested him because they initially suspected he may have purposely caused a bomb scare. The case was not pursued further by the juvenile justice authorities, but he was suspended from school.
Following the incident, the police determined Mohamed had no malicious intent, and he was not charged with any crime.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Ahmed Mohamed clock incident” is incident in which a child was arrested for bringing clock parts to school. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Ahmed, Mohamed and clock, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “incident in which a child was arrested for bringing clock parts to school” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q20978337. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2015.
Official terminology may obscure informal participation, dissent or communities documented only indirectly. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Ahmed Mohamed clock incident”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Ahmed Mohamed clock incident primary sources, Ahmed Mohamed clock incident archive and Ahmed research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Ahmed Mohamed clock incident”?
- What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
- Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Ahmed Mohamed clock incident” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.