The guy actually said this, and he's 100% full of shit imo.
“I’m 100 per cent sure that if I was blond with Caucasian skin type nobody would have noticed and said anything about it, but I’m of dark skin complexion and from Iran and I’m sure that’s related to it.”
STUDENT Goudarz Karimi was just hoping to get fitter when he went out for a quiet jog with a weight vest on.
The item is used by the likes of Prince Harry, but the Iranian PhD student ended up being confronted by armed officers reacting to fears he could be a suicide bomber.
Mr Karimi said: “They told me ‘Stop! Stop! Put your hands in the air. Drop everything you have.’ “The police removed my weight vest and examined it. They started asking questions: ‘What are you doing?’ “They said they had a report of someone walking in a bomb suit. There were police cars and the street was blocked.”
Mr Karimi, 25, was made to remove the 30kg vest so officers could check it for explosives during the incident in Southfield Road, East Oxford, at 3.20pm on Monday.
Last night he said he feared his ethnic origin had sparked the concerns.
He said when it became obvious it was a piece of fitness kit he was still asked to stop wearing it by police.
He said: “They told me I’d have take my vest off – I didn’t want to provoke anything else and that’s why I put my jacket over it.
“I’m 100 per cent sure that if I was blond with Caucasian skin type nobody would have noticed and said anything about it, but I’m of dark skin complexion and from Iran and I’m sure that’s related to it.”
He said officers advised him not to wear it in the street in future. but Thames Valley Police dispute this.
Mr Karimi, who is studying for a PhD in physiology, anatomy and genetics at Oxford University, said: “I felt a bit like my rights were violated. The police told me to take my vest off and to go home and I don’t see why I should.
“The point is the first time they stopped me, they asked me not to walk there anymore – they said: ‘Maybe it’s better somewhere else, like in a park’.
“Then later, when I wanted to do another round of the block and I was walking near the police car, the police officer said: ‘You’ve got to stop.’ “I said ‘I’ve not finished my work-out’ and he explicitly said: ‘Take off your vest’.”
He said that was when he covered the vest with his coat.
The training vest is a popular piece of fitness kit regularly used by boxers and rugby players and even Prince Harry as he prepared for his recent Arctic charity trek.
Supt Amanda Pearson, of Oxford police, said: “Police received a call from a member of the public who was concerned about a man walking in Southfield Road, with what he thought was a vest which may have contained explosives. Officers attended and spoke to the man, who explained he was wearing a weight vest for personal training reasons.
“The vest was checked and officers confirmed this was the case and there was no need for public alarm.
“While I appreciate that in this case being stopped and checked by the officers may have been unsettling to the gentlemen concerned, the officers were responding to a call from a member of the public who had a genuine concern and police are duty bound to investigate any calls of this nature to ensure public safety.”
She said: “In order to stop any further calls from members of the public, the gentleman was asked to put his coat on, which he agreed to do.
“There was no legal requirement for the gentleman to put on his jacket and he did not have to do so.”
She added: “The officers have to weigh up a number of factors to determine if a stop and search is proportionate, and justified, and the decision to stop and search would not be made on ethnicity alone and wasn’t in this case.”
