Black man accused of stealing his own car as he cleans out glove box
A black man was accused of stealing his own car in Bristol after a white woman claimed he looked as if he was ‘rifling through the glove box’.
Abdi Kheyre had been cleaning up his Ford Fiesta before its MOT test when the woman approached him in the road and asked for his car’s registration number. He then began filming their exchange, later stating that he was concerned she was going to call the police.
In the clip, he can be heard saying: ‘This white lady thinks I’m robbing my own car because I’m black.’ The woman then asks for his registration number again, before telling him: ‘It looks like you’re rifling through someone’s glove box.’
Mr Kheyre, a university student, tells the woman to call the police as he accused her of being racist. She then denies this, replying: ‘I might do. Don’t be so aggressive. Everything comes down to race now, doesn’t it?’
He recites his registration number, causing her to respond: ‘Brilliant, lovely’. He then repeatedly tells her to ‘get out of here’ and ‘f**k off’, as she starts claiming there is ‘lots of car crime’ in the area.
She then walked away with her bike, only to return again to ‘apologise’ to Mr Kheyre and say they ‘should be mates’, after he told her he lived nearby. In a separate clip he can be heard saying: ‘You assume I am robbing my car because of my colour. Get out of here. I don’t want to talk to you.’
Mr Kheyre, who works at a supermarket alongside his degree, said he had seen three couples walk past him before the woman stopped and ‘stared’. He told Bristol Live: ‘I asked her if she was alright but she said nothing, which I thought was a bit weird. I’d never seen her before.
‘I went back to sorting the documents and then all of a sudden I heard her behind me asking for my registration number. She asked me what it was a few times and that’s when I decided to get my phone out and start recording her, in case she called the police and told them I’d said something I hadn’t.
‘Why did she think I looked suspicious when the three couples who walked past me before her didn’t?’
He went on: ‘She had no right coming up to me when I was just minding my own business and racially profiling me like that. If she was genuinely concerned that I was robbing a car, would she really have come up that close to talk to me? ‘
‘Surely she would have kept her distance and called the police from far away if she thought I was someone who would try to rob a car in broad daylight.’
Mr Kheyre has lived in the area of Bristol for 10 years, describing it as ‘so quiet’ with ‘really friendly’ people. He said he had not been aware of any car crime, and believes the woman only made those comments after realising he owned his vehicle.
According to police.uk data, the area had five instances of vehicle crime in June 2020, while there were 214 instances reported within the same boundary in the past 12 months. That amounts to 5.9% of crime reported in the area that year.
Mr Kheyre’s videos have now been watched by hundreds of thousands of people after he uploaded them to Twitter. He believes the woman ‘100% would not have questioned him’ if he had been a white middle-aged man instead of a ‘young black guy in a tracksuit’.
He continued: ‘When she left I was in shock for a good 10 minutes. I was really young when I encountered racism and didn’t really understand it, but this time I was so shocked and really angry.
‘After I composed myself I messaged the video to my friends and they said I should upload it to raise awareness. Some of the comments have been really unpleasant, but you’re always going to get them sadly.’
In the clip, he can be heard saying: ‘This white lady thinks I’m robbing my own car because I’m black.’ The woman then asks for his registration number again, before telling him: ‘It looks like you’re rifling through someone’s glove box.’
Mr Kheyre, a university student, tells the woman to call the police as he accused her of being racist. She then denies this, replying: ‘I might do. Don’t be so aggressive. Everything comes down to race now, doesn’t it?’
He recites his registration number, causing her to respond: ‘Brilliant, lovely’. He then repeatedly tells her to ‘get out of here’ and ‘f**k off’, as she starts claiming there is ‘lots of car crime’ in the area.
She then walked away with her bike, only to return again to ‘apologise’ to Mr Kheyre and say they ‘should be mates’, after he told her he lived nearby. In a separate clip he can be heard saying: ‘You assume I am robbing my car because of my colour. Get out of here. I don’t want to talk to you.’
Mr Kheyre, who works at a supermarket alongside his degree, said he had seen three couples walk past him before the woman stopped and ‘stared’. He told Bristol Live: ‘I asked her if she was alright but she said nothing, which I thought was a bit weird. I’d never seen her before.
‘I went back to sorting the documents and then all of a sudden I heard her behind me asking for my registration number. She asked me what it was a few times and that’s when I decided to get my phone out and start recording her, in case she called the police and told them I’d said something I hadn’t.
‘Why did she think I looked suspicious when the three couples who walked past me before her didn’t?’
He went on: ‘She had no right coming up to me when I was just minding my own business and racially profiling me like that. If she was genuinely concerned that I was robbing a car, would she really have come up that close to talk to me? ‘
‘Surely she would have kept her distance and called the police from far away if she thought I was someone who would try to rob a car in broad daylight.’
Mr Kheyre has lived in the area of Bristol for 10 years, describing it as ‘so quiet’ with ‘really friendly’ people. He said he had not been aware of any car crime, and believes the woman only made those comments after realising he owned his vehicle.
According to police.uk data, the area had five instances of vehicle crime in June 2020, while there were 214 instances reported within the same boundary in the past 12 months. That amounts to 5.9% of crime reported in the area that year.
Mr Kheyre’s videos have now been watched by hundreds of thousands of people after he uploaded them to Twitter. He believes the woman ‘100% would not have questioned him’ if he had been a white middle-aged man instead of a ‘young black guy in a tracksuit’.
He continued: ‘When she left I was in shock for a good 10 minutes. I was really young when I encountered racism and didn’t really understand it, but this time I was so shocked and really angry.
‘After I composed myself I messaged the video to my friends and they said I should upload it to raise awareness. Some of the comments have been really unpleasant, but you’re always going to get them sadly.’
