Henry Nowak - just watched the video for the first time

[EvangelicalAboutButteredToast]

I don’t understand how the officers could not tell he had been stabbed. He repeatedly says he can’t breathe and when he says he has been stabbed, they say, ‘I don’t think so mate.’ When he says it again they ask where and he says his face, they then roll him over so they can look at his face, and the video ends with the officer saying the handcuffed victim was likely going to be sick.

i completely understand the officers went there having been told a lie and you see the perpetrator on the video retelling the lie and claiming he’d been a victim of a racist assault, i just can’t understand how the officers didn’t recognise the guy on the floor was dying.

Well my point is that people are beginning to own it. And to be clear, I think that's a bad thing. Because I don't think they do share all their beliefs, only some that are in fact fairly reasonable.

The problem is that there seems to be a consensus that sharing any of their beliefs makes people equally far right.

So politicians or journalists who pretend not to know whether women can have penises, and in this case who insist that it would be "divisive" to acknowledge that the police felt that ignoring an allegation of racism was likely to be career-ending are the most to blame IMO.

The "Boo!! Far right!!!" scare tactics only work up to a certain point. It's like Hillary Clinton's "Basket of deplorables" - it only works if people don't recognise themselves in it. Once they do, the insult has the opposite effect: it normalises the idea of being far right. Or "deplorable".

You said this was about letting them come over here and that one Sikh was too many. You made this into an attack on the Sikh communities, who are really the best integrated communities we have.

You should have talked about the police making a complete over correction to try and wave off their racist past from the last few decades. They’ve gone too far the other ways their training focuses so much on “not looking racist” that we ended up with how they treated Henry. That is a police issue, a racism issue, a training issue. It’s a huge problem. But it’s not about the Sikh community or Sikhs coming over here.

I’d also say it’s a government issue when out Home Secretary is still standing there saying that there is absolutely no two tier policing.

I think it’s this kind of widespread which led to the police acting as they did imo.

this kind of widespread.. what?

the Sikh community is generally well-integrated afaik. The Sikhs I know are incredibly kind, generous and hard working people. I do not believe that Henry Nowak was murdered because his murderer was a Sikh.

But I am not denying that his murderer being a Sikh (edit: and the claims of a racist attack…) probably influenced how the police responded.

The government has the power to fix this but they have chosen not to.

Instead all Starmer and colleagues do is to further inflame matters.

I’m honestly sick of certain people, or groups of people, jumping on horrendous incidents and using them for their own gain.

TR is apparently “on his way to Southampton,” what for? What could he possibly want from the community that poor young boy came from. He’s put on X “see what happens tonight.” Why?

It’s just disgusting. By the end of this week, certain people will somehow be making this about immigration and integration, when in reality what it is, is a disgusting young man murdering another one.

That poor family have lost their child, have asked that it doesn’t fuel division, and here we have the same idiots… fuelling division. They should learn to let the bereaved fucking grieve. Vultures.

I think it happened outside the murderer's house. That's why the mother was on hand to dispose of the knife. They couldn't flee after stabbing Henry because they were already at their own house. So they pretended Henry was the attacker and the police fell for it.

I hope some changes are made in police training as a result. If not there will just be a build up of anger.

He had left a trail of blood trying to flee, they didn’t seem to have assessed the scene or even checked him over for wounds when he said he’d been stabbed. It’s so shocking.

Widespread thinking. That was not a critique of you btw. But I think the police were more likely to believe lack of murderous intent because the family are Sikh. Basically what you just said!

No, it was a random house nearby theirs. He called his family, when they arrived, he spoke to his mum and gave her the knife, she took it home and then came back. While the brother made the 999 call full of lies. It wasn’t their house. Don’t know where the actual occupant of the house was.

One of the residents in one of those houses also called 999 and said someone had been stabbed. The police on the scene don’t seem to have been told that.

so if the main symbol of my religion was a hand grenade, would it be ok to roam the street with one in my pocket. So fe*ing ridiculous

I see what you’re saying. But I think that the point which the poster you criticise was making, is - perhaps - that there is a perception that on occasion the police are making assumptions and allocating guilt based on fashionable ideology, rather than trying to establish the true facts ‘without fear or favour’.

So the police being the police.

What do actual police directives say, does anyone know? Like if a man is lying on the ground, surely you attend to him first?

I want to see what charges are brought against the family. They were there for 14 mins before the police, they didn't call an ambulance and didn't alert the police to the fact Henry had been stabbed. They lied and said Henry had attacked them and that no knives were involved. They then hid they murder weapon. They aided and abetted a murder.

Yes. They did that for many years to people who were non-white.

And I’m saying that as someone who is white.

This problem isn’t new.

What matters is the complete contrast. Henry was hand cuffed while dying, the murderer was afforded a different treatment. By the exact same officers.

It’s a decades long problem that some communities have been sounding the alarm about for ages.

Actually, I just want to roll back on something I said. I don’t think there should be no exemptions allowed for religious beliefs. Just things related to public safety, and if it impinges on the rights of others.

Did you feel that way about George Floyd and the BLM riots?

Every politician was praised for jumping on that one.

The charges are all related to possessing weapons. The dad’s are possession in private and the brother’s are possession in public and private - things like axes and knuckle dusters and knives for both of them. And the murderer as well.

oh give it a rest. this has nothing to do with trans people.

Can I add animal cruelty?

Generally, you’re handcuffed at the scene but then cuffs removed in the vehicle and you’re not cuffed at a station.

It’s also good technique to let them have that wee but of freedom in the van to see if they talk.

It looks so much worse because they cuffed Henry as he was dying. But they always cuff someone if they are not cooperating or drunk etc, which this police officer just assumed was the case because he didn’t bother to actually look at what was going on.

Cuffing Henry is the problem. Not cuffing the others in the van or station is normal.

So in the footage the police arrive to the scene and are presented with:

1. dispatcher info that two people have been racially attacked
2. a calm scene, the people there appear to be showing compassion
3. homeowners standing on the doorstep alongside the family so also believing them?
4. Reports that Henry had tried to run away and fallen (in the absence of any obvious danger)
5. Henry incapacitated (not obviously due to injuries at the time)

Additional context that it’s a Friday night, a university town and December, that people sometimes lie about injuries and there was no obvious large amount of blood.

It is tragic but in 99.9% of similar presentations the person was probably drunk and this is probably what caused them to get it so wrong initially.

Similar special interest groups were allowed to indoctrinate the police forces by providing biased training.