Skip to footer

Ahmed the 'Clock Kid' and family demand $15 million from city of Irving

The city has 60 days to give the Mohamed family $15 million in damages as well as written apologies from the mayor, the police chief, and school authorities. Or, the family's attorneys say, civil action will be pursued.

|
Andrew Harnik
Ahmed Mohamed, the 14-year-old who was arrested at MacArthur High School in Irving, Texas, after a homemade clock he brought to school was mistaken for a bomb, speaks during an interview with the Associated Press, Oct. 19, in Washington. Mohamed is in Washington for a visit to the White House for White House Astronomy Night.

The family of Ahmed Mohamed, the Muslim high school freshman who was arrested earlier this year for bringing a homemade clock to school, is asking for $15 million in damages as well as apologies from the city of Irving, Texas, and its school district.

His attorneys at Laney & Bollinger Lawyers sent two letters to the officials, requesting money and a gesture of regret from the city, or litigation will be pursued.

Both letters spell out the terms of the civil and Fourth Amendment rights violation that Ahmed endured, and the consequent physical and mental anguish for the 14-year-old boy and his family.

"Ahmed never threatened anyone, never caused harm to anyone, and never intended to," the letter to the city said.

"The only one who was hurt that day was Ahmed, and the damages he suffered were not because of oversight or incompetence. The school and city officials involved knew what they needed to do to protect Ahmed's rights. They just decided not to do it."

The letters detail the events during and after his arrest, iterating that Ahmed was never read his Miranda rights. He was also unlawfully interrogated and searched, his attorneys said, which break the Texas Juvenile Justice Code.

The 10-page letter also cited a list of grievances in the aftermath of the incident, including accounts of Irving Mayor Beth Van Duyne and Chief of Police Larry Boyd condoning the anti-Muslim antagonization of Ahmed and his family – a public relations campaign to save face, the attorneys wrote.

“Ahmed’s reputation in the global community is permanently scarred,” they emphasize, because he was singled out for “his race, national origin, and religion.”

If the city and its school district fail to provide written apologies from the mayor, police chief, and school authorities and $15 million in total within 60 days, civil action will be pursued, the letters stated.

The Associated Press could not reach Irving's city attorney and the district for comment Monday.

This report contains material from the Associated Press.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Ahmed the 'Clock Kid' and family demand $15 million from city of Irving
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2015/1123/Ahmed-the-Clock-Kid-and-family-demand-15-million-from-city-of-Irving
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe