Thursday - October 06, 2011

Testing, Testing 1 2 3

An Oxford University student was mistaken for a suicide bomber as he jogged around the city’s streets - wearing a weighted vest. 

Armed police stopped the Iranian man after reports of a suicide bomber, only to discover he was a jogger wearing an exercise vest.

The suspect was ordered to stop running, put his hands in the air and drop everything as officers approached him.

The officers carefully took off the heavily padded vest and searched it, looking for explosives and a detonator.

However, they found the Oxford University PhD student was wearing a training vest loaded with weights for added resistance when running.

Iranian student Goudarz Karimi said he was shocked by the police response even after they realised he was not a suicide bomber.

He said he had gone out for a jog on Monday afternoon and was confronted by the armed response team in Southfield Road, East Oxford.

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 said he feared his ethnic origin had sparked the concerns.

‘I am 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.

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.

Kudos to the police for not simply shooting this idiot on sight. “out for a jog” wearing blue jeans? Training with a 65lb vest on? Who is this guy, Mr. Olympia? And the vest in “tactical” black? Is he kidding? The only thing missing was a couple wires from his iPod.

Ok, to me, this looks a bit more like an ammo vest than a suicide belt, but come on. Maybe it’s a great design for the 1 in 10,000 hard core runners who use such a thing, but neon yellow or safety orange would have been a better color choice. Something that doesn’t scream paramilitary gear quite so loudly.

Looks to me like a desperate attempt to place the race card.  Or the martyr card. Or just to see if he could get away with it, testing the system. What a jerk.

Posted by Drew458     on 10/06/2011 at 09:45 AM   
Filed Under: • RoPMA • Stoopid-People • UK •  
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