Ahmed Mohamed held a press conference outside the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, a day after meeting the president. (Photo: AFP/Getty)headlines,
Ahmed “The Clock Kid” Mohamed, who was arrested after he reconstructed a clock to look like a bomb and brought it to school, has demanded $10 million from the city. From Qatar, Ahmed’s father, Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed, retained legal council at Laney & Bollinger, a Plainview, Texas-based firm that is now claiming the fraudster “suffered severe psychological trauma” from the premeditated “clock” incident.
The letter, obtained by Dallas Morning News reporter Avi Selk, demands $10 million from the City of Irving and $5 million from Irving ISD. Officials have 60 days to “comply” with the demands or face “civil action.”
“The primary purpose of this letter is to provide the City of Irving with formal notice regarding the events of September 14, 2015, involving Ahmed, in which several Irving Police personnel, acting in league with numerous others, deliberately disregarded and violated Ahmed’s rights under 42 U.S.C. §1983, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Texas Juvenile Justice Code, Irving ISD’s policies and procedures, and Texas tort law,” the letter states. “Our firm was only retained by this family a short time ago. Please do not take the list of rights violations in this letter as exhaustive of the possible causes of action which may be relevant on these facts. Please accept this notice as an expression of our intent to pursue all litigation necessary to achieve a full vindication of all of Ahmed’s and his family’s rights.”
Ahmed Mohamed, a 14-year-old Sudanese American, brought in the clock allegedly to show his engineering teacher, but when the teacher treated his stunt for what the police investigation initially showed it to be, which was a “hoax bomb,” Mohamed’s family quickly alleged anti-Muslim discrimination. The 14-year old’s arrest sparked a media firestorm across the nation, and in the aftermath President Obama invited Ahmed to visit the White House as consolation.
The letter also demands apologies from the city’s mayor and police chief, Mayor Beth Van Duyne and Police Chief Larry Boyd. They also state, as part of the argument, that the family, who are now in Qatar, want to return home in the event it is ever safe enough.
“For personal security reasons, Ahmed and family are in Doha, Qatar. However, when they feel safe again, all of them want more than anything to come home, to Irving, Texas,” the letter states.
