New York City bigwigs can’t get enough of ‘terror’ clock kid
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Ahmed Mohamed was arrested (left) in Texas after making a timepiece that was mistaken for a bomb, but he was treated like a celebrity in New York City Monday. Photo: Twitter; Oswaldo Pereira/Office of the Public Advocate
The Muslim clock kid who was arrested in Texas after making a timepiece that was mistaken for a bomb was treated like a celebrity during a visit to City Hall on Monday.
“In New York! So awesome!!!” Texas science whiz Ahmed Mohamed, 14, tweeted this week as his family visited the Big Apple.
Ahmed received a proclamation from Public Advocate Letitia James, who called him a role model and let him sit in her chair in the council chambers.
Ahmed also met Mayor de Blasio, who he said told him, “Keep doing what you’re doing.”
The teen flashed a wide smile as he posed for photos in the ornate chair, known by pols as the “Captain America” chair for its flamboyant upholstering, which resembles the superhero’s shield.
“Never stop doing dreaming & being you,” James tweeted.
Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito took the boy and his family on a little tour of City Hall, and Comptroller Scott Stringer presented him with a framed commendation.
“All students should engage w/ science and technology – Ahmed Mohamed is a role model for all NYers,” Stringer tweeted afterward.
Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams was also enthusiastic.
“I’m thrilled to welcome @ItsAhmedMohamed & his love of #science to NYC,” Adams tweeted after meeting the teen outside City Hall.
“I’ll buy one of his clocks!”
In mid-September, Mohamed’s home-rigged digital clock — a tangle of wires and electronic components fitted inside a metal pencil box — so unnerved officials at his school that police arrested him and he was temporarily suspended.
Since then, he’s been invited to the White House by President Obama and embarked on a whirlwind tour that’s taken him as far away as Qatar.
Officials in his hometown of Irving, Texas, near Dallas, ultimately did not press charges, and have insisted the boy would have been arrested regardless of his religious beliefs.
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