The kid literally took a clock out of its housing and put it into a briefcase and paraded it around. Of course, someone seeing a briefcase full of wires and a display of numbers will be quite suspicious. It doesn't matter whether or not the kid happens to be a Muslim. This kind of stuff happened on the MetroNorth train in my town, a kid had accidentally left an art project that was a silver box with wires and the train got stopped and the police and a bomb squad came in.
It makes no difference what color you are, people are scared as stuff of bombs and deliberately bringing in a device to scare people into a defamation suit is stupid.
Read more on this kid, he's a fraud. Esp the "soldering CPUs" interview.