Family of Clock Kid Ahmed Mohamed Sues for $15 Million-Truth!

Family of Clock Kid Ahmed Mohamed Sues for $15 Million-Truth!  

Summary of eRumor:
The family of Ahmed Mohamed, the Muslim teenager who was arrested and suspended from a school in Texas for bringing a home made clock to school, has sued the city of Irving and the school district for $15 million.
The Truth:
It’s true that the family of Ahmed Mohamed plans to file a $15 million lawsuit over the teenager being arrested and suspended for brining a homemade clock to school.
A lawyer representing Ahmed Mohamed, also known as the “clock kid,” announced the family’s plan to file a $15 million lawsuit on November 23, 2015. A letter of demand alleges that school officials never thought Ahmed Mohamed’s homemade clock was a bomb and forced him to sign a letter of confession, the Washington Post reports:

Attorneys claim that Ahmed showed it to another teacher earlier in the day without consequence. But in his English class, a teacher told him it “looked like” a bomb.

“The basis for Ms. West’s actions is unclear. She certainly did not treat the clock as though it were dangerous. Ms. West initially placed the clock on her desk,” the letter states.

Ahmed was escorted out of class and taken to a room where five Irving Police Department officers, the principal and assistant principal performed an “interrogation,” attorneys said. He was not permitted to contact his parents and was “pressured to sign a written statement admitting that he intended to bring a ‘hoax bomb’ to school.” The letter states that the principal threatened that he would be expelled if he did not sign the confession.

News of Ahmed Mohamed’s arrest and suspension for bringing a homemade clock to school sparked a national controversy over religious discrimination. Although Ahmed Mohamed was not charged for brining the homemade clock to school, he was suspended because, school officials said, he had brought a “suspicious looking item” to school.
In appearance on the Glenn Beck’s The Blaze radio show, Irving Mayor Beth Van Duyne said that Ahmed Mohamed told the media more about the homemade clock than he told police and school officials who were trying to ensure the safety of kids in the school:

We’ve heard more from the media than the child ever released to the police when we were asking him questions. He told a lot more to the reporters than he ever told to the police. There’s a problem with that. If your child was in that school and you saw something like this come in, you would want to make sure it is our priority to make our children safe in school, period. Irving is the fifth safest city in the country. We’re pretty very proud of that fact. We have a very professional police department. I’m very proud of them. What has happened as a result of the hashtag of the misinformation that has been spread like wildfire immediately by the president is we now have death threats on members of our police department and in our school district. For what?

After Ahmed Mohamed was arrested and suspended, he was invited to an “Astronomy Night” event at the White House. Then, the family accepted an invitation for Mohamed to attend a private school in Qatar free of charge and relocated there. The family’s attorney later said the family would like to return to Texas:

“Qatar is nice, but it is not Texas. That is their attitude toward this,” Hollingsworth said. “They are citizens of Irving, Texas, USA, first. Are they devout people devoted to their faith? Absolutely. But they are Texans, too, and they want to come home. What we are seeking is for them to be able to do that with their heads held high.”

So, it’s true that a lawyer has announced that Ahmed Mohamed plans to file a $15 million lawsuit against Irving and the school district.