A New York Police Department inspector met with an unusual visitor Wednesday morning. NYPD Inspector Steven Griffith of the 26th Precinct in Morningside Heights spoke with Ahmed Mohamed, the Muslim teenager who made headlines two weeks ago when his high school teachers mistakenly believed his stripped down clock was an actual bomb. Authorities arrested Mohamed at the time.
Mohamed and his family accused school official and local authorities of discriminating against the teen because he is Muslim. The teen was later invited to meet President Obama as well as Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg.
Insp Griffith speaking to Ahmed Mohamed about #NYPD youth programs & presented him #NYPD #Basketball @IStandWithAhmed pic.twitter.com/FmjhTOu9sV
— Chief Joanne Jaffe (@NYPDCommAffairs) September 29, 2015
Griffith, who spoke to Mohamed about NYPD youth programs, presented the youngster with an NYPD basketball.
The Dallas Morning News reported Saturday that Mohamed had racked up “weeks of suspensions” during middle school. The teen blamed an administrator at the school who he believes had it out for him.
Ralph Kubiak, Mohamed’s seventh grade teacher, told the Morning News that the boy told him “‘I told you one day I’m going to be — and you told me yourself — I’m going to be really big on the Internet one day.'”
Kubiak said he was concerned about fame’s effect on “an immature, fertile mind” and he would warn his students “to keep the adults out of it.”
“The adults have an agenda,” he would say. “The adults are using you.”
Inspector Griffith made news himself early in the year when he complained about NYPD superiors allegedly “pushing out” a black Chief of Department.