Allen E. Kishpaugh: How is it a ‘hoax’?

Regarding the Sept. 17 news article “Inventive student cuffed for ‘bomb hoax’ ”: To just about everyone involved in this story, all the way down to the Texas police, how is Ahmed Mohamed being accused of any sort of “bomb hoax” when it seems he never presented it as being a bomb in the first place?

For him to have made a “bomb hoax,” he would have needed to say to someone, “This clock is actually ticking down to when it will explode,” or something to that effect.

Is something missing from the story, or is the terminology just misrepresentative of what actually occurred?

This story was originally published September 18, 2015 at 1:29 PM with the headline "Allen E. Kishpaugh: How is it a ‘hoax’?."