So, for weeks/days, Elon Musk, who bought a social media platform so he could turn it into his own personal forum for inflaming racial tensions - was talking up the race element of the British Henry Nowak murder and calling for the release of police body cam. (Of course, Musk has no connection to Britain at all, but if there is a white race riot to encourage, he's there for it, no matter which country. He is a repulsive billionaire.)
The murderer (a young Sikh, an ethnicity not known for being particular troublemakers anywhere in the work, as far as I can tell) was convicted yesterday and got life imprisonment (which means a minimum of 20 something years in Britain, I think.) Some other family members are being pursued too, for helping in a cover up. And the police body cam was released.
Out of curiosity I watched it. Musk and other racebaiters had been going on and on for weeks about how the British police had attended and let the young white victim (who said he had been stabbed) die because they believed the perpetrator who said he had been the victim of a racial attack. Sounds bad, hey? How could they just let a stabbed man die?
Watching the video, my reaction was "well, that was a terrible and unfortunate mistake by the police, but I can see how it happened. There was no sign that the young victim had been stabbed - no obvious blood on his clothes. He's lying on the ground, groaning; someone says he has blood in his mouth; someone says he had jumped over a fence and landed on and fell off a parked car, the mouth blood could well be caused by that. He was probably mistaken as a drunk lout. It is not at all a case of police withholding treatment, they just didn't realised how serious his condition was. This is a complete beat up by Musk."
Yet on British media, and especially on Musk's X (which he has probably rigged to make sure the algorithm promotes this to the hilt) there are very few people taking the view that I took - the poor police made a mistake, and while sure, there was no need to handcuff the victim, they did nothing to cause the death. They put him on his side, and he died in front of them within a couple of minutes of their arrival. It is not comparable to the George Floyd death at all, where police proactively exacerbated the difficulty in breathing while people standing around begged them to stop.
The medical evidence at the trial (referred to in the judge's sentencing remarks) was that he would not have been saved even if first aid was attempted immediately, given the artery that the main stabbing cut.
And yet Musk and his racebaiters are acting like this was the worst thing they have ever seen - a white person not believed! Because the police believed an ethnic who falsely said he was racially attacked! (Completely ignoring that the police took the perpetrator back to the police station, investigated it promptly and worked out the guy was lying and he's now in jail. The process to get him convicted was, in fact, remarkably quick, I reckon.)
The New York Times has a relatively dispassionate report on it. Someone on Reddit posted this section of the sentencing comments, which also is dispassionate and realistic:
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.
Why aren't there more people in Britain standing up for the police - some of whom are now under death threats.
And bear in mind, I have felt for years that the British system of using police for things which should be dealt with civilly (investigating someone for offensive namecalling, for example) was pretty stupid and hard to understand. It's not like I'm saying the use of the police there is never inappropriately "woke."
But I just can't see that the outrage against the police behaviour in this particular case is in any way deserved here - it is over the top and more people need to start saying so.
Update: Even Starmer is mouthing stuff about how "the police have serious questions to answer". Coward. The police have apologised, and sure, politicians can legitimately can talk about better training, etc. Politicians can even talk about reviewing the Sikh exemption for carrying knives, since many do it with mere ceremonial knives, without making it a crisis.
But if you want the state of the UK get even worse, try making the Police feel insanely victimised (to the point of fearing for their life) when they make a genuine mistake in handcuffing someone, and not offering first aid when they didn't realise it was really needed (not that it would have stopped the death anyway) and make it harder to recruit and keep them.
Update 2: Reddit is mostly dominated by people wanting police blood too - charge them! With what? Manslaughter? They didn't cause the death. Criminal negligence? The medical evidence has already said first aid administered would not have prevented death - especially as the guy died within a short time of the police arriving.
Some lawyers had better start talking about the reality here. People think the police should be criminally liable for making a mistake and causing offence by not believing the poor victim. It's not realistic.
Update 3: If Claude.ai can be believed (I know, but I might try searching elsewhere too) have Sikhs been in trouble before in the UK for using their exempt knives? Nope:
On historical prosecutions: the search results turn up no other case in England where a Sikh was charged with a criminal offence arising from use of a kirpan or similar religiously carried blade. There have been incidents of Sikhs being stopped by police for carrying kirpans (cases in Birmingham and Gatwick airport), but in the Birmingham incident the man was advised regarding his behaviour and no further action was taken. The other knife-related cases involving British Sikhs in the search results involved Sikhs as victims, not perpetrators using religiously carried weapons. deccanherald
There was a Sikh man charged with stabbing two people at a community event in Southall, London, but that involved charges of GBH and possession of a bladed article — not a kirpan religious exemption scenario. tribuneindia
In short, to the best of available records, the Digwa/Nowak murder appears to be the first — and as yet only — case in England where a Sikh has been convicted of a serious violent offence involving a knife carried under the religious exemption. The rarity of this is part of why British Sikh groups are pushing back strongly against calls to ban the kirpan, emphasising that this is an isolated criminal act, not a community pattern.
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