War of words ignites over Trump admin rebuke of British police after teen bled to death in handcuffs
A war of words has erupted between U.S. and British officials after a young Briton with a bright future bled out in handcuffs as police took him into custody on...
By Fox News · Fox News
A war of words has erupted between U.S. and British officials after a young Briton with a bright future bled out in handcuffs as police took him into custody on suspicion of making racial remarks, only to learn later that his killer fabricated the allegation. The State Department issued a harsh rebuke Thursday night amid online outrage stemming from the stabbing of Henry Nowak, and Vice President JD Vance was quick to pile-on, claiming the incident proves that western civilization is at risk. "Ideological conditioning and two-tiered policing are glaring symptoms of civilizational decline," the State Department wrote Thursday in a viral post on X. "They must be rejected across the West. The United States sends our condolences to the family of Henry Nowak and the people of the United Kingdom at this troubling time." It was the first time the Trump administration commented publicly on the horrific stabbing. In December 2025, Nowak was returning home from a night playing soccer with friends in the southern England city of Southampton when he encountered 23-year-old Vickrum Digwa, a British Sikh man of Indian heritage wearing a turban and carrying a long ceremonial knife. Nowak was later handcuffed by police after Digwa claimed the student was racist against him, and police refused to believe him when he said he was stabbed. He died while in police custody. "Henry Nowak died the same way a civilization dies: abandoned, handcuffed by authorities who neither trusted nor cared for him, and accused of hate crimes he did not commit," Vance wrote on X in a lengthy post addressing the overseas crime. "His murder is as tragic as it is enraging," the vice president continued. "He should still be alive today, and he would be if the last few generations of European elites had stood their ground against the politics of self-hatred and the mass invasion of migrants, many of whom despise the West and the people who love it." He reiterated how a top priority of the Trump administratio…