[Igottago]

Originally Posted by pylon

I think people need to look at this without skin color. I personally believe if any kid of any skin color opened that thing up in a school, there would be cause for alarm (no pun intended.) The fear of the school is probably based more on the trend of school violence than Mohammed's skin color or religion. School shooting and violence are more a "white kid named Jeff." problem anyway.

As with anything, looking at this from the other side. If this story had panned out differently, and the kid was named Jeff, and the thing was a bomb that killed 10 students, everyone would be chastising the teacher for being such an idiot and not heeding the warning signs. The school erred on the side of caution and the media made this the race issue. Had this been a white kid named Jeff, this wouldn't even have made news.

OK I'll take race right out of it.

Random kid brings his science project to school. Shows it to teachers, claims it is a clock. Another teacher later sees it and feels uneasy. Teacher proceeds to confiscate the potential bomb and call authorities. So now the teacher is holding the bomb and the school hasn't been evacuated. Authorities handcuff the kid and still haven't evacuated the school, meanwhile trying to determine threat level.

This seems like a really really stupid way to handle a potential bomb situation.