Chidakasha

Compassionate journalist Jonathan Cook, journalist begins:

“Here are two things that can be true at the same time:

First, the actions of police officers in Southampton in handcuffing 18-year-old student Henry Nowak and reading him his rights as he lay on the ground taking his last gasps of air, his lungs filling with blood from a stab wound, are barely comprehensible.

Vickrum Digwa, the Sikh man who stabbed Nowak, had [lied to police] (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjepqy29jdpo), claiming that Nowak had initiated a racist attack against him.

Police officers attending the scene ignored all the visual evidence in front of them – clues the rest of us can see from the [bodycam footage](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/c172kkwpd9xo). Nowak was all too obviously in desperate need of medical attention and compassion. Instead he died alone in the most appalling circumstances.

Second, all statistical and anecdotal evidence continues to show that British police forces are [deeply racist](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/05/head-of-britains-police-chiefs-says-force-is-institutionally-racist-gavin-stephens) – not against white people like Henry Nowak, but against members of ethnic minorities, especially black people.”

Notwithstanding a police chief’s recent defence of his men repeatedly kicking a prone and restrained man in the head as justified roughness the behaviour of the UK police remains a matter that should concern us all regardless of our tribal identitifications.

The murder of Henry Nowak by Vickrum Digwa and the contribution to that murder by police officers who handcuffed him instead of trying to save his life is appaling. Only a fool would fail to condemn the actions of the police officers and question the causes underlying those actions. But only a fool would conclude that the police and other instutions of governance are institutionally racist against white people. Nigel Farage has expressed and weaponised that conclusion and it is being repeated by his supporters. It is being weaponised and repeated to create more rifts in the social fabric and turn community against community.

Cook’s article continues with a clear commentary on how UK policing has come to be politicised, anti-rational and racist. I recommend that we read and discuss this article and suggest that it is important to do so if we are interested in maintaining a cohesive community based on principles of Liberty, Equality, Fairness and Truth rather than prejudices that divide and destroy community.

https://jonathancook.substack.com/p/uk-policing-culture-from-the-nowak