'Clock boy' moves to new school

Ahmed Mohamed will be transferring to another high
school, family spokesperson says
Police were notified about a suspected hoax bomb
and arrested the 14-year-old
It started a social media storm, which included an
invitation to the White House
(CNN)— The week started pretty terribly for Texas
high school student Ahmed Mohamed. On Monday,
the teen, who is Muslim, brought to school a clock
that he was proud to have made on his own and
was arrested for what police initially -- and falsely
-- said was a hoax bomb .
But by mid-week, his face and name were
splashed across traditional and social media, and
he'd received thousands of tweets and Facebook
posts of encouragement. President Barack Obama
invited him to the White House and praised his love
of science. Leaders at Reddit and Twitter offered
him internships . Google executives said they were
reserving Ahmed a spot at their weekend science
fair and MIT asked him to visit the campus.
Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg invited him to
visit the company's headquarters, posting, "Having
the skill and ambition to build something cool should
lead to applause, not arrest. The future belongs to
people like Ahmed."
The hashtags #IStandWithAhmed and
#EngineersForAhmed garnered hundreds of
thousands of posts and tweets.
By Thursday, more details of the 14-year-old's
arrest in Irving, Texas, came to light.
In an interview late Wednesday with MSNBC's Chris
Hayes, Ahmed said he was pulled out of class at
MacArthur High School by his principal and five
police officers and taken to a room where he was
questioned for about an hour and a half.
He said he asked the adults if he could call his
parents.
"They told me 'No, you can't call your parents,'"
Ahmed said. "'You're in the middle of an
interrogation at the moment.' They asked me a
couple of times, 'Is it a bomb?' and I answered a
couple of times, 'It's a clock.'"
"I felt like I was a criminal," the teenager said. "I felt
like I was a terrorist. I felt like all the names I was
called."
Hayes asked what he meant.
In middle school, Ahmed said, he had been called
"bombmaker" and a "terrorist."
"Just because of my race and my religion," he said,
adding that when he walked into the room where he
was questioned, an officer reclined in a chair and
remarked, "That's who I thought it was."
"I took it to mean he was pointing at me for what I
am, my race," the freshman explained.
Ahmed is not going back to MacArthur -- he's
transferring to another school, his father Mohamed
Elhassan Mohamed said. The family has not yet
picked a new school for Ahmed, he said, and is
exploring options inside and outside of the country.
'Scared but happy now'
Mohamed, who immigrated to the United States
from Sudan, believes that his son was targeted
because of his brown skin color and his religion.
The teen has never been in trouble, Mohamed told
CNN. "My son's name is Mohamed -- people just
think Muslims are terrorists but we are peaceful,
we are not that way," he said.
He was furious that the school didn't contact him
right away to tell him his son had been arrested.
Instead, he first learned of what happened when
police called him.
Mohamed said he rushed to the station and saw his
son "surrounded by five police and he was
handcuffed."
The school later suspended Ahmed for three days,
his father said.
Mohamed said his son was at first embarrassed by
what happened, but then was lifted and emboldened
by the widespread support he has received.
Ahmed also appeared on ABC's "Good Morning
America" on Thursday.
"I was scared at the moment, but now I feel really
happy," he said. "I'm getting all this support from all
over the world. And the support isn't just for me but
for everyone who has been through this. I will fight
for you if you can't stand up for yourself."
He said he was most excited to hear from MIT. "I
dream of going there," he said.
And he's thrilled to go to the White House.
"I hope to see him soon," Ahmed said of Obama.
Irving police had held onto the clock as evidence,
but on Thursday, they told CNN that it's ready for
Ahmed to pick it up.
Asked what his plans for the future are, he told
GMA, "That clock was part of my future."