A question about Henry Nowak….

[CurlewKate]

Is there any actual evidence to support the suggestion that this completely awful event had anything to do with with “two tier policing” and was a hideous example of appalling policing and in particular, appalling first responding? It is unforgivable that the police didn’t check Nowak properly for injuries. But there was no weapon at the scene and the police were met with 4 people who had called them and were all telling the same story.They made assumptions which they would probably have made regardless of the ethnicity of the people involved. And in 999 cases out of 1000 the assumptions would have been right. The sort of judgement call the police have to make all the time. So it seems to me that it’s not about policy, it’s about incompetence.

Disagree. The murderer gave a story about racism which was politely listened to. Henry was sitting slumped on a driveway. The householder told police that he’d got blood in his mouth and couldn’t sit up.

Because racism is apparently the worst possible crime anyone could suffer, the police response ignored all the evidence that Henry was mortally injured and treated him as a criminal, handcuffing him although he was clearly not in a fit state to sit upright let alone resist arrest. I believe that their rough handling of him hastened his death.

The murderer wasn't even handcuffed or searched he was treated respectfully with kid gloves unlike the victim

No it happened really fast and I think it was a numbers thing rather then a race thing. The family reported a crime the police turned up assuming the family reporting the crime is the actual victim then they have the whole family telling them a made up story. There wasn't enough time to ask questions before the poor lad died. Its very unusual for a murderer to call the police and report a crime and its even more unusual for a whole family to back a murderer. I certainly wouldn't do that for a family member

999 out of 1000 their assumptions would be right? I don’t think so. Refusing to respond when someone’s begs for help and claims to be stabbed is not normal or acceptable, ever. And handcuffing a man completely incapacitated without even attempting to ask his side of the story.

But would it seem more normal if over 50% of the people you arrest a day pretend to be hurt. Its very common for people being arrested to use this tactic. And im not saying that means the police shouldn't take every one of them seriously but you can kind of understand in such a short space of time how this happened. And I still find it odd that he wasn't lying in a massive puddle of blood after being stabbed 4 times as then it would of been obvious.

The murderer was allowed to walk around the police station choosing the food he wanted. He was never handcuffed at any point. I think that says it all as to who they were pandering to and why.

This, I think I'm right in saying that even Henry Nowak's family questioned the difference in treatment.

in 999 cases out of 1000 the assumptions would have been right

The police failed in their duty even if the assumptions had been right. There are clear protocols about what you do when someone says they have been injured, the situations in which someone should be handcuffed etc. The issue isn't just that the police misjudged the situation- of course that's easily done- but that, having misjudged it, they completely departed from ordinary policing practice.

I've heard senior police interviewed about this suggesting it was partly because they were a very inexperienced team, so once the allegation of racism had been made they completely departed from normal practice and let that allegation shape everything that followed. The correct protocols would have been to examine thoroughly for injury and not to handcuff someone who was clearly not a threat- that would be the case whether or not the racism allegations were true.

Nobody is suggesting that the police should have immediately seen through the lies, only that they should not have let what they were told sway them from carrying out their basic duties at the scene.

I do think often the police have prejudices. The idea that young, white males will of been drinking too much at the weekend and are likely to become aggressive and leads to automatic handcuffing. I think it’s the same prejudices that leads the police to stop, handcuff and search black people at much higher rates. This idea that certain groups are more likely to commit offences so everyone within them gets to be presumed guilty until proven otherwise.

On the flip side there are certain minorities that should be treated with kid gloves as the potential accusation of racism can ruin your career.

I’ve seen it said several times thst Sikhs are typically very law abiding which is fair but surely every crime scene should be considered on its own merits. Every person who is going to be handcuffed should be considered whether they are a potential flight risk or aggressive not just automatically handcuffed because police are forever dealing with drunk idiots.

Anyone who thinks black and brown people are treated better by the police, hasn’t been paying attention.

This was a failure of two officers, who having been told by the dispatcher that there had been a racial attack, continued with that assumption despite whatever evidence there was to the contrary. Read what the judge said:

Another consequence of those lies is that the attending police officers honestly believed that there were reasonable grounds for suspecting Henry had
committed an offence and arrested him with the consequence he was handcuffed for about a minute before his condition further deteriorated and the
arresting officer began CPR. The police were given a convincing but wholly false narrative of the incident. It was dark and Henry was wearing a dark top. The entry damage caused by the knife through it, would not have been obvious. Whilst there was visible blood on Henry, it would not have clearly been seen coming from that wound and the clearly visible facial wound was not life-threatening. Henry was complaining that he had been stabbed and was struggling to breathe but that would not have necessarily told the officers how serious the situation had become. It is the experience of the criminal courts that
sometimes, someone arrested and handcuffed will feign injury in the hope they may be released. These police officers were faced with having to make quick
decisions in pressurised circumstances about the best way to act. The genuine shock to the particular police officer, when he realised that he had been giving
CPR to Henry when he had a serious chest wound tends to show that he was doing his best in a very difficult situation.

The pathologist on the case found Henry bled heavily into his chest cavity, (which is why there weren’t pools of blood around him) he would have died no matter what happened. It was tragic that his last experience was to be handcuffed.

This was a massive failure, and I would bet my house on the fact that if the situation was reversed, these officers would have acted in the same way. It was a series of things that led to this, not one issue about race.

Most importantly, Henry’s family have been VERY clear they do not wish for his death to be used for political purposes and to further sow division in this Country. That should be respected.

I can’t envision a moment when a Sikh man would be lying on the ground, saying he’s been stabbed, and the police turn up and his white English attacker was standing over him with 3 members of his family, saying he’s been racially abused first by the stricken man on the ground, and the police then dragging the Sikh man and putting him in handcuffs.

Can you?

Its not racism at all, just complete cackhanded laziness and incompetence. Nobody competent on this planet would ever take a few blokes word for it (it being whatever lie the blokes made up). And the fact the police, trained (presumably) to recognise criminals did it? Scarily useless.

People are easy to brainwash with race baiting on the Internet though, and the bots are going mental right now, dpg whistling and pushing vicious race hatred everywhere, and its working.

I think it was fast. I don't know how long it was after the end of the footage we saw until the police realised Henry was injured.

I don't know who the policewoman was speaking to when she said something about them, the police, having to check. Was she speaking to the brother? Was she speaking to one of the policemen? If so, which one? Was she beginning to see that Henry was not all right and slightly reproving a colleague? Was she being wearily cynical? There are other voices on that footage but I can't hear what they're all saying because they're in the background.

I don't find it odd that he wasn't lying in a massive puddle of blood. I believe there was a trail of blood as he'd tried to get away from Killer but that blood might have come from the legs, and it wouldn't be seen in the dark if it was on the other side of the fence. It would have much easier to see in daylight. I expect they saw it later, either by torchlight or by daylight.
We've been told countless times that there wouldn't be that much blood to be seen yet from his inside wound, because it was pooling inside.

Maybe the police did hasten his death by moving him but I don't think any of them did that deliberately, but to read some posts you'd almost think they did. Not all coppers are bastards any more than all Sikhs are killers. The police had been fed a lulu story which included the implication that Henry was in drink and he'd probably cut/grazed his lip when he fell.

How long would it take any of us to work out exactly what had happened? Can we be sure we'd all assess the situation exactly correctly within the first 10 seconds?

Hampshire Police places VERY heavy emphasis on unconscious bias, race equity and protecting minority community confidence - this is meant to influence split-second decisions in ambiguous situations.

We don't know 100% why the officer did what he did though.

When Killer was taken to choose food, how many policemen were around? Where was he at that point? In a police station? At what time did that happen? I understand that there is indignation that he wasn't hand-cuffed but had he been in handcuffs before that, until food time, or not, and do we know that for absolutely certain? Are the police obliged to offer food to someone if they've been under arrest for a while? What were his chances at that point of being able to run away? And just who wanted to hold his pesky sarnie for him while he bit into it, because he couldn't use his hands?

What would you say to Henry's father who said that the difference in treatment between his son and Digwa was unbearable.

Thankyou for commenting on the blood thing that makes sense what you're saying thats what was confusing me.

Yes. It was two tier policing, due to their training. But it’ll probably change now.

I definitely think the police will be less trusting of the person reporting a crime which 99.9% of the time is the actual victim

I read the judge's summing-up statement, the formal words, a few days ago.

Someone semi-snapped at me on MN within the last couple of weeks and told me to read the transcript of the trial but I didn't find that when I asked Google. It might be up or maybe not.

Presumably each one of the police people gave evidence but I don't know what each one said.

It was very unusual for the killer to call the police and say he had been the victim of a racial attack, did he think they wouldn’t find out Henry had been stabbed in the chest? The police turn up and see what they think is a drunk young man, bearing in mind the type of people the police usually deal with day in day out, and they’ve got the person who called them telling them he’s the victim, along with his mum and dad, it’s a very unusual set of circumstances so you can see how the police got the wrong end of the stick. It’s not unusual for people who’ve been handcuffed to fake an injury to try and get out of the cuffs. Ultimately the person who is to blame is the attacker, who by all accounts was a ticking time bomb.

It’s frightening how certain people are about how this happened before any kind of investigation has been completed. Someone on another thread brought up similarities with Stephen Lawrence’s murder as evidence, completely missing the point that there was a major inquiry into how the police handled that case. We’re a very long way from being at that point. Not that people will believe findings anyway if they don’t support their theory.

“it’s a very unusual set of circumstances so you can see how the police got the wrong end of the stick.”

No, I really can’t. 4 vs 1, and the 1 on the ground (saying that he is and looking like he’s been injured) is the 1 who is immediately arrested, even though the 4 are all unharmed?

Makes ZERO sense.

I would say we have infinitely more (well reported and known) incidents of police prejudice against and harm to people of colour on account of their race than we do incidents of police harm or prejudice to white people on account of their race.

It is rare, despite what some on the right think, for people of colour to try to get away with crime by claiming racism, however it sounds like the police in this case should have in the very least been aware Nowak was seriously injured. It was a truly dreadful incident, but it in no way suggests that the police as a whole are biased against white people when we have so much evidence to the contrary. NB, not saying 'police are all racist' but our society and the way policing is conducted does encourage it.

The people who are now claiming the police are anti-white on the basis of one incident are the same people who have denied decades of evidence about institutional racism, claiming 'it's a few bad apples' or 'you can't call all police racist' (which, again, isn't what 'institutional racism' means)

As PPs have said, also this is under investigation and we need to see the outcome of it.

I would say he is absolutely right to be disgusted and I would support him if he believes that there is more to this than the misadventures of two ridiculously incompetent police officers.