Two little-known lawyers announced Wednesday that they’ve been hired to investigate police treatment of Irving’s most famous teenager. 
 
 Ahmed Mohamed’s family has retained Thomas Bowers, the attorney told reporters Wednesday in the top-floor office of a North Dallas advertising firm. 
 
 “There’s a problem when you have a 14-year-old child arrested in school and basically humiliated in front of his classmates, his teachers, his friends and basically the whole world,” said Bowers. “He may be smiling on the outside, but he’s having some issues.” 
 
 Ahmed’s family said the now-famous boy has lost sleep since his teacher reported his homemade clock to police, who put him in handcuffs on a quickly dropped “hoax bomb” charge. The lawyers plan to have a medical professional examine the boy while they look into the city and school district’s actions. 
 
 Bowers previously represented a former stripper who sued Cowboys owner Jerry Jones. He’ll work on Ahmed’s case with Reggie London, whose Dallas firm typically deals with drunken-driving charges, traffic tickets and other criminal defense cases. 
 
 “I take the cases no one else will take,” Bowers said. 
 
 “I just want justice for him,” London added. 
 
 The lawyers said they contracted with Ahmed’s father Tuesday and didn’t know what, if any, legal action the family might take. In fact, they still knew little about the case — including where the boy was this week. (His family had planned a trip to New York to meet United Nations dignitaries.) 
 
 “I just got hired and I haven’t officially seen the responses or the mayor talking on TV,” Bowers said. “But I feel they made some inappropriate statements or remarks — trying to blame the victim, basically. 
 
 “With us being hired, I imagine they’ll probably cease comments like that.” 
 
 City officials did not respond when asked if they were consulting attorneys about possible legal action. The school district said it would have no statement about whether it is talking to an attorney. 
 
 Irving police announced Wednesday that they had notified Ahmed’s family Friday that the clock could be picked up any weekday at police headquarters. Ahmed’s father, Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed, has told The Dallas Morning News that he planned to retrieve the item but wasn’t sure when. ||||| Irving’s police chief announced Wednesday that charges won’t be filed against Ahmed Mohamed, the MacArthur High School freshman arrested Monday after he brought what school officials and police described as a “hoax bomb” on campus. 
 
 At a joint press conference with Irving ISD, Chief Larry Boyd said the device — confiscated by an English teacher despite the teen’s insistence that it was a clock — was “certainly suspicious in nature.” 
 
 School officers questioned Ahmed about the device and why Ahmed had brought it to school. Boyd said Ahmed was then handcuffed “for his safety and for the safety of the officers” and taken to a juvenile detention center. He was later released to his parents, Boyd said. 
 
 “The follow-up investigation revealed the device apparently was a homemade experiment, and there’s no evidence to support the perception he intended to create alarm,” Boyd said, describing the incident as a “naive accident.” 
 
 Asked if the teen’s religious beliefs factored into his arrest, Boyd said the reaction “would have been the same” under any circumstances. 
 
 “We live in an age where you can’t take things like that to school,” he said. “Of course we’ve seen across our country horrific things happen, so we have to err on the side of caution.” 
 
 The chief touted the “outstanding relationship” he’s had with the Muslim community in Irving. He said he talked to members of the Muslim community this morning and plans to meet with Ahmed's father later today. 
 
 Speaking at an afternoon news conference outside the family’s home, Ahmed’s father said he’s proud of his son and wowed by his skills. 
 
 “He fixed my phone, my car, my computer,” Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed said. “He is a very smart, brilliant kid.” 
 
 Mohamed said he’s lived in America for 30 years, but this was a new experience for him. 
 
 “That is not America,” Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed said of his son’s humiliation after being handcuffed in front of his classmates. 
 
 But Mohamed said he’s also been touched by the outpouring of support for his son. 
 
 “What is happening is touching the heart of everyone with children,” he said. “And that is America.” 
 
 Ahmed, himself, also spoke, saying he was saddened by the initial reaction his invention provoked but amazed at what has followed. 
 
 “It made me really happy to see all these people support me,” he said. 
 
 The teen said he hasn’t spoken to anyone from MacArthur High, where he was suspended until Thursday. 
 
 “I’m thinking about transferring from MacArthur to any other school,” Ahmed said. 
 
 Irving ISD spokeswoman Lesley Weaver also addressed the media, saying that information “made public to this point has been very unbalanced.” 
 
 She declined to provide details on how school officials handled the incident, citing laws intended to safeguard student privacy. 
 
 “We were doing everything with an abundance of caution to protect all of our students in Irving,” she said. 
 
 Irving Mayor Beth Van Duyne took to Facebook to defend the actions of the school district and police, saying their daily work helped make Irving “one of the safest cities in the country.” 
 
 “I do not fault the school or the police for looking into what they saw as a potential threat,” Van Duyne wrote. “We have all seen terrible and violent acts committed in schools. ... Perhaps some of those could have been prevented and lives could have been spared if people were more vigilant.” 
 
 The mayor later amended her post, acknowledging that she would be “very upset” had the same thing happened to her own child. 
 
 “It is my sincere desire that Irving ISD students are encouraged to use their creativity, develop innovations and explore their interests in a manner that fosters higher learning,” Van Duyne wrote. “Hopefully, we can all learn from this week’s events and the student, who has obvious gifts, will not feel at all discouraged from pursuing his talent in electronics and engineering.” 
 
 Shortly after the press conference, President Barack Obama extended a Twitter invitation for Ahmed to bring his “cool clock” to the White House. “We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It’s what makes America great,” the tweet read. 
 
 Josh Earnest, Obama's press secretary, said the case goes to show how stereotypes can cloud the judgment of even the most “good-hearted people.” 
 
 “It’s clear that at least some of Ahmed's teachers failed him,” Earnest said. “That’s too bad, but it’s not too late for all of us to use this as a teachable moment and to search our own conscience for biases in whatever form they take.” 
 
 The White House also extended the teen an invitation to speak with NASA scientists and astronauts at next month’s Astronomy Night. 
 
 Ahmed, still wearing the NASA shirt he was arrested in, said Wednesday that he gladly accepted the White House invitation. 
 
 Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg also joined the social media chorus, extending an open invitation to visit and exhorting Ahmed to “keep building.” 
 
 “Having the skill and ambition to build something cool should lead to applause, not arrest,” Zuckerberg wrote. “The future belongs to people like Ahmed.” 
 
 Earlier Wednesday at a modest, red-brick house in central Irving, Ahmed and his family welcomed media crews at the front door and in the backyard as they tried to come to grips with the boy’s overnight ascension to international celebrity. 
 
 His sisters, 18-year-old Eyman and 17-year-old Ayisha, could hardly keep up with the tweets and stunning news about their little brother. Because Ahmed was never much for social media, the girls set up a Twitter account for him, @IStandWithAhmed, and watched it balloon to thousands of followers within hours. 
 
 “We’re trending No. 1!” Ayisha cried to her sister, holding a cellphone over a stuffed coffee table in the living room. 
 
 “It's a blessing and a curse,” Ayisha said of Ahmed’s arrest and subsequent fame. “I don’t think he’ll ever be able to live normally again.” 
 
 But they were happy for invitations to visit companies including Google and to move and study in other cities, and for the tweets of support, including one from Hillary Clinton. They recalled how, barely two days earlier, their brother described struggling to hold back tears in front of police officers after his arrest. 
 
 The homemade digital clock that led to Ahmed Mohamed's arrest (Irving Police Department) ________________ 
 
 Ahmed, after finishing up another interview in the backyard, recalled his emotions as he was handcuffed at Irving MacArthur High School and removed from campus. 
 
 “I was really mad,” Ahmed said as he looked at a much-retweeted photo of himself in handcuffs. “I was like, ‘Why am I here?’” 
 
 A Council on American Islamic Relations representative then hustled Ahmed and his family off to talk to a lawyer. 
 
 After they left, Ahmed’s grandmother, Aisha Musa, lay on a bed in the dining room, resting her feet. She had immigrated from Sudan with the rest of the family years ago. 
 
 She doesn’t speak English or know her exact age, but her granddaughters translated her take on her grandson’s celebrity: “I want my son’s son to grow old and have a good job. I thank God there’s nothing people can say but [that] we are good people.” 
 
 Staff writers Naheed Rajwani, Julie Fancher, Todd Gillman and Robert Wilonsky contributed to this report. 
 
 Update at 10:09 a.m. Wednesday: Former secretary of state and Democratic presidential candidiate Hillary Clinton joined the tidal wave of tweets supporting Mohamed Ahmed after his arrest Monday for bringing a homemade digital clock to school. 
 
 "Assumptions and fear don't keep us safe -- they hold us back. Ahmed, stay curious and keep building,” Clinton's tweet read. 
 
 Irving ISD officials and Irving police will hold a press conference at 11 a.m. Wednesday at the Irving Criminal Justice Center. We will continue to update this story as new developments emerge. 
 
 Update at 9:32 a.m. Wednesday: After the story of Ahmed Mohamed's arrest for bringing a homemade digital clock to school went viral Tuesday, triggering an outpouring of support for him on social media, Ahmed tweeted a thank-you early Wednesday. 
 
 Original story by Avi Selk: 
 
 IRVING — Ahmed Mohamed — who makes his own radios and repairs his own go-kart — hoped to impress his teachers when he brought a homemade clock to MacArthur High on Monday. 
 
 Instead, the school phoned police about Ahmed’s circuit-stuffed pencil case. 
 
 So the 14-year-old missed the student council meeting and took a trip in handcuffs to juvenile detention. His clock now sits in an evidence room. Police say they may yet charge him with making a hoax bomb — though they acknowledge he told everyone who would listen that it’s a clock. 
 
 In the meantime, Ahmed’s been suspended, his father is upset and the Council on American-Islamic Relations is once again eyeing claims of Islamophobia in Irving. 
 
 Box of circuit boards 
 
 A box full of circuit boards sits at the foot of Ahmed’s small bed in central Irving. His door marks the border where the Mohamed family’s cramped but lavishly decorated house begins to look like the back room at RadioShack. 
 
 “Here in high school, none of the teachers know what I can do,” Ahmed said, fiddling with a cable while a soldering iron dangled from the shelf behind him. 
 
 He loved robotics club in middle school and was searching for a similar niche in his first few weeks of high school. 
 
 So he decided to do what he’s always done: He built something. 
 
 Ahmed’s clock was hardly his most elaborate creation. He said he threw it together in about 20 minutes before bedtime on Sunday: a circuit board and power supply wired to a digital display, all strapped inside a case with a tiger hologram on the front. 
 
 He showed it to his engineering teacher first thing Monday morning and didn’t get quite the reaction he’d hoped for. 
 
 “He was like, ‘That’s really nice,’” Ahmed said. “‘I would advise you not to show any other teachers.’” 
 
 He kept the clock inside his school bag in English class, but the teacher complained when the alarm beeped in the middle of a lesson. Ahmed brought his invention up to show her afterward. 
 
 “She was like, it looks like a bomb,” he said. 
 
 “I told her, ‘It doesn’t look like a bomb to me.’” 
 
 The teacher kept the clock. When the principal and a police officer pulled Ahmed out of sixth period, he suspected he wouldn’t get it back. 
 
 They led Ahmed into a room where four other police officers waited. He said an officer he’d never seen before leaned back in his chair and remarked: “Yup. That’s who I thought it was.” 
 
 Ahmed felt suddenly conscious of his brown skin and his name — one of the most common in the Muslim religion. But the police kept him busy with questions. 
 
 The bell rang at least twice, he said, while the officers searched his belongings and questioned his intentions. The principal threatened to expel him if he didn’t make a written statement, he said. 
 
 “They were like, ‘So you tried to make a bomb?’” Ahmed said. 
 
 “I told them no, I was trying to make a clock.” 
 
 “He said, ‘It looks like a movie bomb to me.’” 
 
 Police skepticism 
 
 Ahmed never claimed his device was anything but a clock, said police spokesman James McLellan. And police have no reason to think it was dangerous. But officers still didn’t believe Ahmed was giving them the whole story. 
 
 I expect they will have more to say tomorrow, but Ahmed's sister asked me to share this photo. A NASA shirt! pic.twitter.com/nR4gt992gB — Anil Dash (@anildash) September 16, 2015 
 
 “We have no information that he claimed it was a bomb,” McLellan said. “He kept maintaining it was a clock, but there was no broader explanation.” 
 
 Asked what broader explanation the boy could have given, the spokesman explained: 
 
 “It could reasonably be mistaken as a device if left in a bathroom or under a car. The concern was, what was this thing built for? Do we take him into custody?” 
 
 Police led Ahmed out of MacArthur about 3 p.m., his hands cuffed behind him and an officer on each arm. A few students gaped in the halls. He remembers the shocked expression of his student counselor — the one “who knows I’m a good boy.” 
 
 Ahmed was spared the inside of a cell. The police sent him out of the juvenile detention center to meet his parents shortly after taking his fingerprints. 
 
 They’re still investigating the case, and Ahmed hasn’t been back to school. His family said the principal suspended him for three days. 
 
 “They thought, ‘How could someone like this build something like this unless it’s a threat?’” Ahmed said. 
 
 An Irving ISD statement gave no details about the case, citing student privacy laws. But a letter addressed to "Parents/Guardians" and signed by MacArthur Principal Dan Cummings said Irving police had "responded to a suspicious-looking item on campus" and had determined that "the item ... did not pose a threat to your child's safety." 
 
 ‘Invent good things’ 
 
 “He just wants to invent good things for mankind,” said Ahmed’s father, Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed, who immigrated from Sudan and occasionally returns there to run for president. “But because his name is Mohamed and because of Sept. 11, I think my son got mistreated.” 
 
 Mohamed is familiar with anti-Islamic politics. He once made national headlines for debating a Florida pastor who burned a Quran. 
 
 But he wasn’t paying much attention this summer when Irving Mayor Beth Van Duyne became a national celebrity in anti-Islamic circles, fueling rumors in speeches that the religious minority was plotting to usurp American laws. 
 
 However, the Council on American-Islamic Relations took note. 
 
 “This all raises a red flag for us: how Irving’s government entities are operating in the current climate,” said Alia Salem, who directs the council’s North Texas chapter and has spoken to lawyers about Ahmed’s arrest. 
 
 “We’re still investigating,” she said, “but it seems pretty egregious.” 
 
 Meanwhile, Ahmed is sitting home in his bedroom, tinkering with old gears and electrical converters, pronouncing words like “ethnicity” for what sounds like the first time. 
 
 He’s vowed never to take an invention to school again. ||||| With details on accusations against the mayor and police chief.As they threaten a lawsuit, Ahmed Mohamed's family says that not only did police illegally interrogate the boy for bringing a homemade clock to high school, but that top officials later worked to "kneecap a kid in the media" to cover up their mistakes.The smear effort made Ahmed the target of anti-Muslim conspiracy theorists and caused his family to flee the country for their own safety, the family's lawyer claimed Monday in letters addressed to City Hall and Irving ISD—demanding apologies and a total of $15 millon to stave off a civil rights suit."Mayor Beth Van Duyne lied about Ahmed and his family, and she did it to an audience that is on the absolute fringe of American life," attorney Kelly Hollingsworth wrote. "Van Duyne irreparably endangered the safety of the Ahmed family."City and school officials did not immediately comment on the letters or possible lawsuit, which has long been expected inside City Hall.Together, the letters add new details and accusations to a story that played out on a global stage after Ahmed, an aspiring engineer, brought a homemade clock in a pencil case to school and ended up charged with making a hoax bomb.Among the claims the letters makes:- It says police illegally questioned Ahmed without his parents present, even after the 14-year-old asked for them.- It says that during the questioning, Ahmed's principal threatened to expel him if he didn't admit that his clock was a hoax bomb—though he had never claimed it was anything but a clock.- After police dropped the charges and news of the arrest went viral, city and school officials devised a plan to "trash Ahmed" to the media, according to the letter.- School officials insinuated that Ahmed wasn't telling reporters the truth about his arrest, and publicly pressured his parents to let them release his private student records.- Officials falsely claimed that Ahmed violated school policy and "zero tolerance" laws, none of which apply to his homemade clock.The letter singles out Van Duyne, who had been gaining popularity in anti-Islamic circles for months before Ahmed's arrest. Afterwards, she sat for an interview with Glenn Beck, a former Fox News host who claimed—with no evidence—that Ahmed planned to get arrested and embarrass the city in advance of a "civilization jihad.""Beck later opined that this was the 'Islamists' conspiracy to soften us up, so that we could later be attacked from inside," reads the letter. "When the guest sitting less than an arm’s length from Mayor Van Duyne called the pencil box a “briefcase,” she did not say a word. She just nodded."But the mayor went further, and "defamed Ahmed," the boy's lawyer argues, when she called his clock a "hoax bomb" during the interview—despite the fact that police had already dropped the charge.The mayor implied in the same interview that officials had another side to the story, but were unable to release it due to privacy laws."Mayor Van Duyne did not explain where she got Ahmed’s private educational information," the letter reads. "Nor did she assert any justification for her choice to release it to an audience that is paranoid about the 'final confrontation' between 'Islamists' and 'Americans.'"The letter comes as anti-Muslim rhetoric is sweeping the presidential primary race and seeping into local politics. Over the weekend, armed protesters stood outside Irving's largest mosque—convinced that the Quran instructed Muslims to kill nonbelievers.Ahmed became a symbol of Islamophobia to millions after his arrest, fielding invitations from state leaders and celebrities that led him on a world tour and to a brief chat with President Barack Obama. But after withdrawing from Irving ISD and recieving scholarship offers from across the country, Ahmed and his immediate family abruptly moved to Qatar last month.At the time, the family said the move was best for Ahmed's education. The Qataris were offering to pay for his schooling through college. But now the family says the decision had as much to do with a backlash in the United States. Ahmed's home address was made public, and commenters on fringe websites threatened him with violence."Ahmed fears for his physical safety after receiving many threatening emails," reads the letter. "When they feel safe again, all of them want more than anything to come home, to Irving, Texas,"In the mean time, it demands the City of Irving pay the family $10 million, and the school district pay another $5 million.That, plus letters of apology from the mayor, police chief and school officials, will end the threat of civil rights lawsuit.We've just received the demand letter to City Hall. Ahmed's family wants another $10 million from the city, plus a written apology from Mayor Beth Van Duyne and Police Chief Larry Boyd. You can read the new letter here , or below. I'll summarize it in another update shortly.Days after a Muslim high school freshman was arrested and suspended for bringing a clock to school, a legal advisor at Irving City Hall emailed his colleagues to expect a lawsuit.He appears to have been right.An attorney for Ahmed Mohamed's family has written a letter to Irving ISD, due to be sent today, demanding $5 million and an apology to stave off a civil rights lawsuit.Adding many new details and accusations to the world-famous story, the Mohameds claim that authorities illegally interrogated Ahmed, threatened to expel the boy if he didn't say his clock was a hoax bomb, and "sought to cover its mistakes with a media campaign that further alienated the child at the center of this maelstrom."While the boy—who became an instant célèbre after news of his arrest went viral —appeared thrilled in TV appearances around the world, his family says the attention actually turned their lives upside down, eventually driving them out of the country after a conspiracy theory-fueled backlash labeled Ahmed a terrorist in training."They stoked the flames," reads the letter, which in nine pages calls out everyone from the boy's principal to Mayor Beth Van Duyne. "They tried to push responsibility off on the victim – Ahmed."I'm told a separate letter is on its way to City Hall, with more demands. For now, there's quite a bit of detail in the one I've seen.It's posted at the end of this story, and I'll add more once I've heard back from officials (who have not yet said whether they've received the letter).Mean time, here are some highlights:- After a teacher confiscated the homemade clock and the principal led Ahmed to a room full of police officers, the boy asked to see his parents. The letter claims he was told, “No. You’re being interrogated, so you cannot talk to your parents.” And it claims this was illegal.- The letter says police intentionally "stretch[ed] the interrogation as long as possible, so they could find someone willing to take responsibility for arresting Ahmed. ... Through the entire ordeal, Ahmed steadfastly maintained that the only reason he brought the clock to school was to show it off to some of his teachers."City and school personnel commented later to the press that Ahmed was not forthcoming during the inquisition. It seems not to have dawned on any of them that he was scared to death. "- The letter claims that Ahmed's questioning at a juvenile detention facility was also illegal. And it suggests that all this happened simply because he is Muslim: "Let’s face it; if Ahmed’s clock were 'Jennifer’s clock,' and if the pencil case were ruby red bedazzled with a clear rhinestone skull and crossbones on the cover, this would never have happened."After the arrest, family claims, officials tried to cover their mistakes: first by suspending the boy for no reason, and then by misleading the media as the story made its way around the world.- "Apparently frustrated that he could not extract a criminal confession … [MacArthur High principal Daniel] Cummings covered himself by suspending Ahmed" for possessing items prohibited by school policy, says the letter. But "Ahmed was not in possession of any of the 'prohibited items' listed in that rule. Ahmed was suspended for nothing."- The morning after news of Ahmed's arrest broke, Cummings made a school-wide PA announcement, telling students "we have a very different version of what happened than what you are seeing from the media." That statement, the letter says "directly defamed both Ahmed and his family by calling them liars."- Irving ISD spokeswoman Leslie Weaver also besmirched the boy, the letter argues. It says that as Ahmed's story went viral, the spokeswoman told press that the 8-inch pencil case that house his clock was actually a briefcase or suitcase.' "This fed the false impression – bolstered by the first picture of the clock the Irving PD released – that the clock is many times larger than it is," the letter reads..- Even Mayor Beth Van Duyne is called out, for "putting her impramatur on [TV host Glenn] Beck’s delusional conspiracy theories" when she nodded as Beck speculated that Ahmed brought his clock to school as part of a jihadist conspiracy to weakened the United States."What must that do to a young man?" the letter asks. Then it answers:The family's lives were turned upside down by the media craze, the letter claims. Everyone saw Ahmed on Dr. Oz and at the White House, but meanwhile:- His siblings were allegedly harrassed at their own schools, and one of his sisters got fired.- The family's home addresses was tweeted out—a major problem because "many believe that Ahmed and his family are terrorists, similar to those responsible for the September 11th attacks on the Twin Towers."- Even for those who believe the boy's story—which police now support—that he didn't mean to cause any alarm with his clock, his "name, and particularly his likeness, [are] forever associated with arguably the most contentious and divisive socio-political issue of our time."It gives the district 60 days to pay up and apologize, or face a lawsuit. 
 
 2018.11.23 Irving ISD Demand Letter 
 
 2015.11.23 City of Irving Demand Letter 
 
 NOTE: After this letter was sent out to the city, another lawyer notified The Dallas Morning News that Lt. John Mitchell is wrongly named on Page 4, and had nothing to do with Ahmed Mohamed’s case. The firm that authored the letter has been asked to issue a correction.
– Things aren't going as well as it might seem for "clock kid" Ahmed Mohamed, according to lawyers his family has hired to investigate the Texas teen's treatment by police. "There’s a problem when you have a 14-year-old child arrested in school and basically humiliated in front of his classmates, his teachers, his friends, and basically the whole world," attorney Thomas Bowers tells the Dallas Morning News. "He may be smiling on the outside, but he's having some issues." Ahmed's father says he won't be returning to the high school that suspended him after a teacher thought his homemade clock was a bomb. The family's lawyers initially said they were looking at ways to get the clock back from authorities in Irving, but police say they decided to return it to him last week and the family can pick it up anytime, BuzzFeed reports. The lawyers tell the Morning News that they aren't sure yet what legal action the family will take, but they feel that authorities, including Irving's mayor, have tried to "blame the victim," and now that they've been hired, "they'll probably cease comments like that." It's not clear when the family will get a chance to pick up the now-famous clock: Ahmed will meet with UN dignitaries in New York today and his father plans on a trip to Mecca, as well as a White House visit.