A 12-year-old Sikh boy has been arrested in a school in Arlington, Texas, after joking that he was going to blow up his school.
The police say that Armaan said that he was joking when he told a classmate that he had a bomb in his backpack.
“I thought it was a joke, so I started laughing and he started laughing,” Armaan remembered. “The next thing you know, I’m reading with my friend and police come in, grab me and take me outside.”
The school district has only released limited information, citing privacy issues, and a Tarrant County Juvenile Services spokesman declined to provide any details about Armaan’s detention.
A spokesman for the Arlington school district said that they tried to contact Armaan’s parents on Friday afternoon, and they were aware that Armaan had been arrested and taken to a juvenile detention center. While the school said that the parents did not attend a scheduled meeting, police said they were able to inform Armaan’s parents about their action.
A police spokesman said, “We arrested the boy and handed him over to the juvenile facility. How long they hold him for is not under our control; it’s determined by the juvenile justice department.”
The case is similar to Ahmed Mohamed’s case. Ahmed, a Muslim boy, was arrested a few months ago having made a clock that the school staff mistook for a bomb.
Ahmed’s arrest led to allegations of racial profiling and religious discrimination, with many saying that the case was an example of Islamophobia. Armaan’s arrest has attracted similar criticism on social media.
“All these bas***** see is race & the color of your skin – The color of your skin does not define who you are (sic),” Haer wrote on Facebook.
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