Jophiel wrote:
So apparently this kid wasn't smart enough to make a clock but was smart enough to predict everyone's reactions from the school to the police to Microsoft's and the White House's and get a bunch of free stuff, helpful should he ever decide to make a clock. Makes sense.
Hence the theory that his father encouraged him to do it. His father's political associations certainly provides motive to do this, and he is well versed in how to manipulate public opinion to support his groups ideological objectives. He's part of a group that actively works to raise awareness of anti-Islamic bias in the US (and which has been accused of leaping to such claims absent evidence in the past). What a strange coincidence that his son would go to school with a device that is not a bomb, but that does look enough like one that the school and police might just have to react to it in a way that he could then say was anti-Islamic bias. You know, because out of all the smart kids who tinker with electronic stuff for fun, I'm sure this sort of crazy misunderstanding must just happen all the time, right? Oh wait. Other kids who tinker with stuff at home, generally don't decide out of the blue to take them to school, otherwise we might just have heard about other similar events.
What an amazing coincidence that the one kid who decided to do this, just happened to take a clock apart and put it in a case in a manner that no one would think to do unless they were trying to make something that looked like a bomb, and just happened to be the one kid in America who thought it was a great idea to take this to school, and just happens to be the son of a man with a strong ideological agenda that benefits from having his son falsely accused of bringing something that looks like a bomb to school. I know lots of people who are into tech stuff. It's never occurred to any of them to do anything like this. Ever. Actual home electronics projects don't look anything like what he did. They involve either hand made components, or kits. They usually actually do something that they didn't do prior to starting the project (which is the point). His was just a clock when it started, and a clock when he was done.
All he did was basically an appearance mod. And one that just happened, just by coincidence, to make a standard alarm clock look far more like a bomb than it did when he started. C'mon Joph. You can't possibly fail to see the massively unlikely coincidence going on here.
I asked my friend who's a teacher/mentor for his High School robotics team what their policy is on kids either bringing electronic parts they built from home to school, or removing components from the lab and showing it around campus (in specific context with this issue). He paused and said "Well, we don't have one. No kid has ever done that. I suppose we should actually tell kids not to do that now, but we've never had to before". The point being that this isn't normal behavior, even for kids who play around with such things. I'm not sure (and he wasn't either) whether it's just that it never occurred to any of his kids (he's been doing this program for like 7 years now) to do that, or whether they just innately understood that wandering around campus with an undefined bundle of electronics might just look suspicious and get them in trouble, but the larger point is that this isn't something kids do.
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bundled his work in a way that triggered zero tolerance rules by the school/police
This wasn't the case. There isn't a zero tolerance policy at the school that required them to call the police and there's certainly no "zero tolerance" rule the police are bound by forcing them to arrest the kid. The only thing "zero tolerance" is good for here is trying to lift the blame off the teachers, principle and police who all acted extremely poorly.
The quote from the police stated that they weren't sure what to do because they knew it wasn't a bomb, but they couldn't be sure it wasn't designed to be a hoax-bomb. So yeah, they erred on the side of caution and proceeded as though it was a hoax bomb (which falls under the "must arrest and suspend" rules). I don't think that's acting "extremely poorly" at all. They also said that he acted in a "passive aggressive" manner (not much elaboration on that though). From the bits I've gathered, he basically refused to say anything about the clock except that it was a clock. From what I gather, it's almost like he was coached to be as uncooperative as possible. Again though, most of this is just speculation from bits and pieces of information. But I think the point is that leaping to the assumption that the police had no good reason to do what they did, and that he was just an innocent kid doing what normal kids might do, is not something we should do. We have to at least consider the possibility that this was set up deliberately to provoke the reaction that occurred.
The police were the ones questioning him. You and I were not there. They made the decision to detain him. Again, you and I were not there. They have said repeatedly that it was not because of his religion or his ethnicity. Again, you and I were not there. Forgive me for giving them at least a tiny bit of the benefit of the doubt that at that time, and in that place, and in that situation, what they did seemed to be the correct and prudent response. Because... wait for it... they were there. You and I were not.
Heaven forbid we actually wait for the facts to come out before jumping on a bandwagon position, which will then make it harder for us to change later. I honestly think that most people's strong resistance to the idea that there might be more to this than just a gross police over reaction comes from the fact that they've already taken a strong emotional position on the issue. Which, of course, is precisely why these sorts of things are presented this way. Massive media outrage early on leads to people taking an emotional position, which makes it very very hard for them to accept a different narrative later. Even going so far as taking ridiculous steps to defend that initial assumption. Heck. Most people who started out with the "OMG! They profiled this poor innocent kid" position can't even acknowledge that what he did does, in fact, look quite a bit like a bomb. That's not something you arrive at rationally as a result of objective examination of the images, but because you're already emotionally invested in the outcome. If I'd shown you that picture two weeks ago, and asked what it looked like (in a purely objective context), you'd have said "bomb". Everyone would say "bomb". Well, there might be some rare electronics geek who'd say "it's a clock that's been taken apart and arranged in a case to look like a bomb". It's only because of the context that you'd argue (quite passionately) otherwise.
Edited, Sep 23rd 2015 9:18pm by gbaji