Hundreds of protesters descended upon the Southampton Central police station on Tuesday evening as tensions ran high following the release of bodycam footage showing officers handcuffing 18-year-old Henry Nowak as he bled to death while begging for their help.
Chanting Nowak’s final words, “I can’t breathe”, hundreds of Britons took to the streets of Southampton to demand justice for the slain student, who was murdered last year by 23-year-old Vikrum Digwa with a ceremonial Sikh knife. As police came onto the scene, they were falsely told by Digwa’s family that Nowak had been racially abusive.
Despite Nowak being in clear physical distress and repeatedly telling officers that he had been stabbed and that he could not breathe, officers were incredulous and chose to believe the Digwa version of events, handcuffing the dying 18-year-old instead of his attacker. Footage of the tragic loss — published in the middle of the night on Monday by the local Hampshire Police — has sparked national outrage, with some, including Reform UK boss Nigel Farage, accusing the force of anti-white racism.
According to the local Daily Echo newspaper, more than 300 people gathered outside of the Southampton Central Police Station on Tuesday evening, holding placards reading, “Prison 4 Police on Scene”, “We Want Justice”, and “Save Our Kids”.
One resident told the paper, “I am here for Henry. I saw the video online when he was handcuffed and dragged on the floor after being stabbed and I want the police to be held accountable. It angers me seeing them stood there in uniforms it angers me. We don’t want trouble, but emotions are high.”
The protesters were joined by veteran street protest organiser and anti-grooming gang activist Tommy Robinson, who told the crowd that the death of Nowak was clearly racial.
“I’ve spoken about this for twenty years. You will be a victim of a race gang, i.e., Pakistani Muslims, who will be beating up a white kid. The police will turn up, and they jump on the white kid, every time. I’ve seen it my whole life, they jump on the white kid.”
“What the whole world has seen in Henry’s video is what we all know anyway. It’s a different treatment for white people compared to non-whites, and we have seen this spread through every single institution in our country,” he said.
Mr Robinson also called for the arresting officer to be imprisoned rather than being allowed to resign, saying: “We want him in prison for what he done. Not one single police officer was prosecuted for allowing the rape of a generation of our daughters, not one. None of them have faced prosecution, they’ve all left with their fucking pensions, every one of them have left with their pensions, exactly the same as this, he will resign with full bloody pension. It’s not good enough.”
As the protest wore on, some of those gathered chose to walk on towards the site of Nowak’s murder, which also happened to be where the Digwa family lives. According to the Echo, some of the protesters clashed with police in riot gear, throwing bricks and other objects at the officers.
Seemingly attempting to lay the groundwork for another scapegoating, Prime Minsiter Sir Keir Starmer attempted to claim that it was Nigel Farage who was “whipping up” in his response to Nowak’s death. This playbook was deployed early on in the Starmer administration as it faced multiple days of riots following the killing of three young girls at a Southport dance party by second-generation Rwandan Axel Rudakubana. For questioning the migration background of the killer, Mr Farage was accused of stoking the riots.