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Original poster

A question about Henry Nowak….

303 replies

CurlewKate · 10/06/2026 14:09

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.

OP posts:
ExitPursuedByABare · 12/06/2026 00:18

🙄😂🙄

AmateurDad · 20/07/2026 23:09

CurlewKate · 10/06/2026 14:09

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.

No, none that had been made public, anyway. Some may emerge from the IOPC investigation but my strong suspicion is the officers' reactions will
turn out to have had nothing at all to do with any anti-racism training they may have received.

AmateurDad · 20/07/2026 23:13

BoredZelda · 10/06/2026 17:14

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.

My word. This is one of the best posts I have ever read on the internet

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