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.

I haven’t. We have no idea whether that was relevant in this particular situation. We have no idea what the motivation of the police officers who talked about that impact. Also there are good reasons why in some cases treating everyone exactly the same does not lead to equality. We are at risk of this situation leading to unintended and undesirable consequences. All the more so if we are unwilling to discuss it in a nuanced way.

You have your pp does this.

And since you’ll ask what post here it is again.

‘It seems to me highly unlikely that in the heat of that moment, the police officers acted in a way that policy told them to.’

Labour seem to be imploding anyway.

Don’t worry the police have never been worried about being seen as being racist.

Just look at the statistics of unfounded checks and arrests on black and brown people vs white people.
Plus all of the statistics regarding black and brown people given harsher sentences for the same crime as a white person.

This wasn’t about race.
Digwa’s family phoned the police and by default are treated as the victims.

Unless it is in your home (and therefore you can’t deny it), it is very unlikely that you would stab someone and then ring the police.
They could have easily hidden away and just phoned an ambulance saying there is a drunken man in their front garden.

So the police attended the scene assuming that Digwa was the victim and Henry was the perpetrator.

When they realised that Henry was injured, then they did arrest Digwa to question him at the station but as it was dark they couldn’t be certain it was a stab wound.

If Digwa is willing to go to the station and is still playing the poor victim then there is no need to handcuff him (although I think they should have).

His brother was the one who rang the police and so there was still a good chance that he was the victim.

If they were worried about being seen as racist then they obviously wouldn’t have arrested him and taken him to the station to question him, especially not so soon.
They would have believed the story about Henry being injured from the fall until a medical expert said otherwise.

The only time people are handcuffed is if there is a risk of violence or escape.
You are not automatically handcuffed on arrest (in fact many people aren’t).

A shop lifter usually gets handcuffed as they’re likely to do a runner. But the woman that recently stabbed her husband to death wasn’t handcuffed because they felt she wasn’t going to attack them or do a runner. It had nothing to do with her race or religion.

I don’t know how you can say this isn’t about race.

Digwa and his family literally made it about race!

To jump to that conclusion so quickly after stabbing someone is very telling. It either was a racist attack on Henry or digwa had a belief that pulling the race card would have him treated favourably. Either one of those is a big problem.

They did indeed try to make it about race. I would argue they failed since if the intention in playing the race card was to avoid prison and not only did he go to prison but his lies were singles out for censure by the judge. So in that sense the race card failed whatever their expectations. It's hard to know what they were thinking though since surely the fact he'd been stabbed and the family had lied would have been noticed eventually.

It's possible that Digwas characterisation of the assault as a racist assault rather than simply an assault could have had an impact on the police's decision making. I have no idea. Neither do you as others have pointed out there were a host of other possible reasons as well.

He stabbed someone and needed a reason why Henry was chasing him.

He used his religion as a weapon, as Sikhs are known to be non-violent and it was the major difference between him and Henry.

He also knew that statistically it’s very possible that a white male would attack a Sikh.
There was recently the case of a man who rapped and attacked a woman because she was Sikh, the woman who attacked a man with an axe because he had brown skin and the man who tried beheading the immigrant.

It is unfortunately quite common for black and brown people to be attacked by white males.

The Digwa family used these statistics to their advantage.

It was not the police that jumped to the conclusion that it must have been a racist attack - this information was given to them.

In the majority of cases, the person that phoned the police is the victim.

They didn’t make Digwa the victim because of his race/religion.

They rang the police and Henry was on their property.

If this happened outside a nightclub and a random person phoned the police and the police immediately jumped to the conclusion that it was a racist attack - then yes they’re using racial bias against Henry.

But that’s not what happened here and I’m not sure why people are missing out the huge part about the family phoning the police and Henry being on their property - which by default makes him look like the perpetrator.

He also knew that statistically it’s very possible that a white male would attack a Sikh.

🙄

I said “highly unlikely”. Not impossible. We do not know for certain. That does not seem to stop those with a political agenda being convinced of their explanation. And ignoring the wishes of the families of the victims of these appalling incidents.

Why are you rolling your eyes? You know it’s true and so I’m not sure what that’s for.

Because it’s “statistically very possible” for any man to attack another.

Your comment is racist. Interchange that WHITE MALE for any other race and see how the sentence reads.

🙄

Statistically in the UK black people are more likely to be the victim of racist attacks.

Let’s not start throwing statistics and pro capita around hey, may be embarrassing.

Do you have different statistics for racist attacks particularly?

Ask the person who first brought up statistics?

In this country statistically POC are more likely to be racially attacked by young white males more than the other way around.

If I went to India, then I would expect it is statically more likely that white people are attacked by Indian men than the other way around.

Neither are racist to say.

Is it sexist to say that males are more likely to commit violent crimes than females?

Or that more women are victims of domestic abuse than men - is that sexist too?

What about the fact that men tend to be more violent during late teens - late 20s - is that ageist?

Are those statistics ok to say?
Is it just when we use the word ‘white’ that you have an issue with statistics and try to play the race card.

I don’t think she does. She’s already said that statistically non-white people are more likely to be victims of racist attacks.

You sound like you disagree… somehow.

Maybe it’s because of the bullshit ONLY WHITES CAN BE RACIST?
Always a racist attack when it’s a white person doing it and “just an attack” when it’s the white person as the victim 🤔

That’ll skew the stats somewhat.

He stabbed someone and needed a reason why Henry was chasing him.

I think he was chasing Henry and Henry was trying to escape him. The judge's sentencing said that Digwa had grabbed Henry's phone and was continuing to film him as he ran.

The problem came about because he collapsed after scaling the fence and was unable to move off the property and in a very bad state, but with only the attacker and his brother knowing about the wound and when it was inflicted. Part of the court remarks say that Digwa and his brother discuss in Punjabi a story to say the wound occurred in self-defence, and also are recorded as saying something like 'If there were any cameras on the street where the stabbing took place, that wouldn't be watertight' (entirely my paraphrasing).

Presumably the family had not expected that the wound would prove to be so dangerous, so quickly, and their actions were an attempt to save their own scalps. The OP raises the question of assumptions. The engineering around the call set up a framework for assumptions, with lies - no weapon, no ambulance needed, collapsed person a drunk male, person calling appearing credible - and the initial scene seemed to support that.

To me, though, the phrase "I don't think you have, mate", was an assumption. And the expectation that the extent of the injury was from crashing off a fence.

You challenged the statistics- feel free to post your own!

Erm. Thanks, Ronnie fucking Pickering, but nobody said “only whites can be racist,” and they certainly didn’t bellow it into the internet.

But thank you for your input.

No non-white people can be racist too.

But it is statically more likely in this country for POC to be racially attacked than a white person.

It’s not skewing the stats when the person admits they attacked the person for racist reasons.

I’m not sure why you find that so difficult to understand.

I suggest you do some more reading then.

Any suggestions what I should be reading?

All of my books on the subject centre around actual real life, and not some fictional reality where white people are statistically as likely to get racially abused.

I’ll need recommendations for alternative literature.

Sure Jan. Use your own initiative.

So you’re saying that only white people can be racist?