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The bodycam footage of Henry Nowak was released. Mostly peaceful protests ensue.
A summary of the story (most of this info is in the PDF I'm about to link, feel free to skip this section and read it yourself): Henry Nowak had had a few beers (still under the legal limit), saw the Sikh man, Vickrum Digwa, pulled out his phone and started recording, and called out to him a few times "Are you a bad man?", with Digwa replying "I am a bad man." The recording ended shortly after Digwa grabbed Nowak's phone. The judge giving the sentencing said that Nowak was not asking this with hostility in his voice (warning, PDF download); he likely was drawn to ask about it upon seeing the larger of the two knives that Digwa carried. Yes, two knives. Digwa was carrying two ceremonial knives that are permitted to him as a religious article, one of them being a kirpan, an 8 inch one, on a sheath over his waistband.
There is no video record of the struggle after the video ended, but Digwa stabbed Nowak 4 times. The stab to the chest was the fatal one, passing through all of Nowak's clothing and penetrating upwards, between the two uppermost ribs, puncturing a lung and penetrating even deeper to cut a vein behind the collarbone, a wound of 8 cm in depth. There was no apparent injury to Digwa himself, though he claimed his eye had been bruised when the police officers arrived. Digwa took some of his own videos of the dying Nowak after stabbing him, telling him he had not been stabbed. His brother, Gurpreet, made the call to 911. Before the officers arrived, Digwa handed his kirpan to his mother and told her to take it away. He also kept Nowak's phone, and didn't tell the officers he had it. Nobody told the officers that Nowak had been stabbed, certainly not Digwa, who might have been the only one present who would know that.
As shown in the bodycam video, the police arrive for Gurpreet's complaint, briefly listen to Digwa's complaint, and quickly determine that Nowak should be arrested, so they drag his limp body into a better position to be handcuffed. Nowak weakly tells them that he's been stabbed, which the arresting officer impassively denies. The other officers investigate this claim a bit more; the female officer can tell that he's in rough shape, and notes that his pupils aren't even reacting to the light. They tried CPR on him after this, presumably; in the judge's remarks, one officer was horrified to learn of the chest wound after having done chest compressions on him.
So, there's rioting. The BBC doesn't frame it quite as sympathetically as they framed the anti-racism rioting from 6 years ago, though. Which brings us to our George Floyd comparison.
George Floyd was accused of using counterfeit bills. He had been arrested many times before. When they arrested him this time, they knelt on his (neck? upper back?) as he slowly died, claiming, as Henry Nowak had when he died, that he couldn't breathe. The public saw it as an execution of Floyd just because he was black, even though Floyd actually died from the fentanyl in his system, and the kneeling was department protocol (inadvised protocol, if the suspect is having trouble breathing).
In this case, the police presumed guilt of the nearly-dead unarmed man, even as his murderer was still upright and telling all kinds of lies. The public broadly sees this as anti-white bias, paralleling the racial claims from Floyd. Unlike Floyd, Nowak was actually murdered, and he was murdered with a knife that the white members of the public can't even own or carry for self defense. They can't even carry pepper spray. That Digwa as a racial and religious outsider to Britain is also an enhancing factor.
I will interject a brief defense of the police in this case: I took a concealed carry class recently, and I have also watched a few Paul Harrell videos on the subject. In self-defense situations, you want the police on your side. The way to do this is to call them first, before the real attacker does, and establish that you are the injured party, the complainant, and he is the injurer, even if he's lying in a pool of his own blood. Digwa did these things, and hid information from the police, so it's a little more understandable that they made a mistake. In light of the Pakistani rape scandal, however, I also find it understandable if the public doesn't find it understandable, and really do suspect that the police have an anti-white bias. And of course, it's completely unacceptable that they dismissed his claims of being stabbed, especially since he was on the ground when they found him.
For me, there's a lot more meat to these protests than the 2020 BLM protests. If I lived in the UK, I would probably be protesting too (peacefully!). If liberal societies continue along their outgroup-favoritism path, they might find that the post Civil Rights Movement atmosphere, whose protocol they were acting in accordance with, has completely evaporated, and they must forge a new and uncertain path forward. That's the human condition.
Also worth mentioning, after Nowak died in their custody, they thought it important to search his phone for racism. When that turned up nothing, they went to his father to inform him of what happened, and searched his phone as well, hoping they can find some racism there. Whatever you think of their behavior in the heat of the moment, their action afterwards is not indicative of an honest mistake, in my opinion.
This specific claim appears to be the product of Chinese whispers; Millennial Woes's exhaustive account of the entire incident can find no evidence for it.
Damn what an infuriating read. I'm torn though, everything the murder and his family did is beyond evil. However is there any evidence that Novak was accosted without any provocation on his part? It sounds like he was drunk and drunkenly his called out to the non-drunk guy with a big fucking sword, and tried to banter with him in an insulting way. Like does he have any survival instincts? You do not insult the guy with the sword. You don't acknowledge them, you just keep fucking walking, silently. I've seen people with guns, knives, or just general dangerous dispositions while drunk, out and about, you better believe I don't engage, interact or acknowledge them. I definitely don't try to be funny and insult them.
Maybe brits are just stupid and coddled to the point that they can't survive in a world filled with non-coddled, tribal savages. Maybe its an American thing to have at least some danger sense and self awareness. Assume everyone is carrying, be nice, and ignore them.
EDIT: This is the part I'm talking about, like dude just shup up and keep walking.
It's clear to me Digwa is a malcontent, angry at the world, angry at society, and not in a good mood. Some drunk white guy starts talking shit and he just snaps, right to murder, torture, gaslighting, etc. Novak is the effigy for all his hate at the world.
Henry had drunk so little that he was still below the drink-driving limit.
But you're right, this is what happens when a high trust society interacts with a low trust one.
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It seems obvious to me that Nowak was probably somewhat drunk and belligerent, and probably in some way taunted Digwa. Of course I am wholly on the side of the right in this incident; in any case, whatever Nowak did ought not to be used to justify a death sentence.
But, let’s be real, violent criminals of the non-homeless-schizo type (and Digwa wasn’t in that group, if anything heralding from a moderately competent minority, probably average IQ) don’t randomly murder people with zero provocation.
Digwa was caught on video previously in a road rage incident in which he seemed to be threatening the other driver with his weapon out. He was reportedly obsessed with bladed weapons, and had gotten in trouble (charges dropped, obviously) for stealing some from his local Sikh temple.
"He's from a moderately competent community" seems less relevant than "He seems like a wannabe violent asshole". There were a few guys I knew when I was younger, where if I heard they'd done something like this, my response would be "Yeah, I can see Dale doing that." Talking about the low crime rate in our town in general would be silly.
It's interesting how much of the discourse is centered around Sikhs-as-good-'uns.
Some implications about how people see other cases in their heart of hearts.
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Sure, normal people don’t murder strangers (or indeed anyone), every murderer is an extreme outlier by the very fact of their crime. This is true even for “violent assholes”.
But I don’t think this is an unprovoked random killing. I don’t think he sees this kid walking by himself from a distance and decides “I’m going to kill him”. The nature of the crime, the time, and the perpetrator don’t match that.
Where young men obsessed with weapons do just go out and use them (some school shooters, for example), they usually plan their “mission” extensively. They either go for huge impact / publicity / casualties and/or plot some kind of escape route (Digwa’s strategy was clearly thought out after the event). The same is true for most racially and/or religiously motivated attacks by angry young men.
To me by far the most plausible type explanation is that this was some young white ‘frat bro’ (the UK equivalent are probably these university sports teams) type who taunted Digwa (who probably had some racial prejudice given his immediate reaching for that excuse) and he reacted extremely violently, seeing it as a ‘just’ response. This lines up with eg Nowak filming the interaction (probably not out of fear), “what are you gonna do little guy, stab me?” style.
You can’t say things like this without people thinking you’re justifying the killing, which I’m most definitely not, but I find it extremely implausible this was a completely random (or random racially motivated, in that he picked a white guy at random) attack. The outrage is the police response, and maybe more broadly mass immigration in general (although the Southport murders were more impactful there).
I remember reading a satire article (which I'm unable to find now) where the title was something like "'What Are You Looking At?!' Says Man Who Has Been Trying to Get Your Attention for the Last Fifteen Minutes".
I routinely encounter ferociously angry and frustrated people like this who are clearly spoiling for a fight and actively looking for any pretext, no matter how feeble, to start a fight with someone smaller than them. My guess is that Nowak said something utterly innocuous that a more level-headed person would have responded to with good humour, but he had the poor fortune to pick the most mentally unstable young man in Southampton.
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There's a lot of room between "completely random" and "accidentally provoked because the attacker required neglible provocation". Maybe Digwa was already in a seething rage for unrelated reasons, and some mild comment after bumping into a stranger (or just the bumping) set him off. My point is that the plausible, likely area of their potential interactions includes quite a bit of "Henry did literally nothing wrong".
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I think this is accurate. He's a thug, which a chip on his shoulder looking for an excuse to pop off. Clearly has anger issues. As Catsnakes said, he's a wannabe gangster with a sword.
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Agreed, just because the victim was an idiot does not make the crime permissible. Having lived in a major metro and needing to take buses and subways home while drunk, even the schizo's generally (as in I nor any friends have ever seen/heard of this) won't physically attack you if you don't acknowledge them.
There is random schizo violence, NYC homeless schizos pushing people onto the subway tracks for no reason as the train arrives, but Digwa clearly doesn’t fit this psychological profile.
I think I agree with your framing that this boils down to a UK frat bro vs angry honor culture immigrant type-situation.
Novak misunderstood the rules of engagement in these types of situations and thought he could spout off words because violence is so verboten in modern society. Digwa comes from an honor culture where violence (even lethal violence) is an adequate response to slights, and tribal family loyalty outweighs societal notions of fairness that WEIRD people have. This created a lethal situation for Novak as Digwa responded to his taunting with unrestricted levels of violence. His family backed him up by closing ranks, as is expected of community oriented values. A tragedy of multicultural origins with all too human details.
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The accounts I had read gave the impression Digwa was considered by his own community as overly enthusiastic about knives and swords, in that context, the provocation that led to him murdering Nowak might have been a mere pretext for doing something he's always dreamed of doing.
I think that’s very plausible, yes.
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Sounds like Nowak accurately identified what kind of guy he was dealing with (a coward who wanted to think he was hard, worthy of ridicule) and his only mistake was being drunk enough to verbalize it.
His mistake was that he didn't just keep walking. Say in this drunken haze, you correctly identify the guy with the shortsword and the honor culture, is just a pozer who thinks he's tough. Do you really need to insult his honor and force him to do something about it? This is the shit I'm talking about. Like just shut up and walk, its not your problem.
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Note that Brits will never see an armed man in the course of ordinary life. What Digwa was carrying was highly illegal... for anyone except a member of his I'm-so-special religious group.
Until the turn of the century Britain had, mostly, successfully made the country a reasonably gentle society for decent people. It was not designed for tribal savages. This was a good thing and its unraveling is a tragedy.
It's really not. A society that educates out bloody survival knowledge from its populous is a failed society. You don't need to have a society that is designed for tribal savages to also have a society that acknowledges how the real world works. Creating a bunch of quokkas is not a good thing. Also we are talking about the same Britain right? The one with football hooligans??
Its a fucking shortsword, I don't need to see a man with a shortsword and a scowl on his face to know I'm not going to interact with him in any but the most polite and avoidant manner.
They had a society that was designed for the well-heeled and gentile yet also knew how the real world works, and they psyopped themselves into giving it up. They gave their brains and balls away along with the rest of their colonial possessions.
That's an unfair characterization. They sold their brains and balls and the rest of their colonial possessions to Uncle Sam, because the European powers (and the UK) were back-to-back World War losers.
The Allied powers like to delude themselves into thinking their contributions made a difference but, uh, no? Most of the materiel came from American factories, and Americans accepted the price for that materiel in mineral rights and real estate.
It wasn't "giving away". It was war reparations. The rest of Western Europe has paid similarly.
I think lumping balls and brains along colonial possessions is the likely incorrect assumption. The post WWII UK still tried to pull stuff like the Suez Canal. I think the loss of the "balls and brains" has happened much more recently vs the colonial possessions being, as you said, war reparations of the Americans for needing to come in and save the Brits.
America definitely isn't holding Europe's balls or brains. A case can be made that America likes a weaker Europe so as to not challenge the American Hegemony, but internal matters like immigration and culture seems to be a nutcracker the Euro's designed all on their own.
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I'm pretty sure this is both a total non-sequitur and historically inaccurate. Go derail the thread with nonsense elsewhere.
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Apparently. I'm not sure its possible for the British to un-psyop their society back. It would require acknowledging some very-uncomfortable realities about the world that would be impolite and ungentlemanly. I can't imagine the culture of the stiff upper lip can have that sort of honest dialogue
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Who's 'they'? This is like 10% of the population max. They've just got a stranglehold on the organs of power.
And that's quite sufficient. The ones without power don't matter.
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I can only assume the knives Digwa was carrying weren't visible on his person when Nowak ran into him. If so, I doubt the possibility even occurred to him that Digwa was armed. I certainly wasn't aware of religious exemptions to the UK's LOICENSE laws prior to this case, and Nowak probably wasn't either.
More cynically, one might say that a lifetime of antiracist education completely compromised Nowak's ability to assess threats in a sensible way. It simply did not occur to him that the scary-looking Indian in religious garb walking around with a scowl on his face (and perhaps visibly carrying ceremonial weapons) might not respond too favourably to playful banter.
You are aware the massive dagger he used to kill him was visible on his chest when the police were speaking to him, right?
My understanding is that Digwa had two blades on his person, the larger of which he used to kill Nowak, which his mother then removed from the crime scene and brought back to the family home (for which she was convicted). The blade in the photo you linked below is the smaller one which he did not attack Nowak with.
Even if Digwa was openly brandishing the weapons, I can imagine that Nowak might not have noticed. The bodycam footage was filmed in front of a house with a floodlight, but if Nowak and Digwa encountered each other in a dimly-lit street, the weapons on Digwa's person may not have been as obvious. Also consider that Nowak had had a few drinks and was distracted filming a Snapchat video before and during the encounter.
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No, it wasn't. The dagger he used to kill him was on a sheath on his belt. But it wasn't even present when the police arrived, as the original post says. He gave it to his mother to take it into the house so it wouldn't be found. As for the blade on his chest, the bodycam footage is too low resolution for me to identify a knife there.
However, you are correct that Nowak might have seen the blade, considering that location.
https://i.imgur.com/b8FD0Bb.png
Where did you get this image? It's not a frame in the bodycam video. In the bodycam video, I can't see any dagger in that location. For the image, I have no idea when it was taken, or who that is. The person looks similar, but blurry enough that I can't tell if it's the same person. And the sentencing remarks tell a completely different story than anything like this. They charged his mother explicitly for hiding a murder weapon before the police arrived.
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I buy this, I think the article points out the 8-incher was externally carried and is what Novak got stabbed with. I'd bet that is externally carried. But it would make sense to me that a lifetime of not-noticing + mainstream British education has made an entire generation of kids be unable to exist in a world with any sort of real-world aggression.
Note: however, a lifetime of multicultural education should inform you that Sihks as a religion are specifically armed. I learned this shit decades ago in social studies, in a fly-over state in America. Long before I actually ever interacted with a Sihk in person.
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Wow, what a great account! I will have to check Millennial Woes in the future, as the quality of that post is much better than my own and tells me many details I did not know.
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Oh damn. Thanks for the correction.
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