Vice President JD Vance sharply criticized UK policing on Friday in the murder of 18-year-old student Henry Nowak, linking the case to broader failures over mass migration and two-tiered justice.

Nowak was stabbed multiple times in Southampton in December 2025 by Vickrum Digwa, who falsely claimed to officers that he was the victim of a racist attack by Nowak. Bodycam footage showed police handcuffing Nowak as he lay dying and bled out, despite his pleas that he could not breathe.

"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. "His murder is as tragic as it is enraging."

Vance stated that Nowak would still be alive if European elites had resisted "the politics of self-hatred and the mass invasion of migrants, many of whom despise the West and the people who love it." He called for "righteous anger" in response.

The US State Department also weighed in, describing ideological conditioning and two-tiered policing as symptoms of civilizational decline that must be rejected. The comments followed leaks of footage and reports of unrest in Southampton.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy pushed back, with Lammy telling Vance in a call that his characterization was wrong and that the case had nothing to do with mass migration. An investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct is underway.

The incident has fueled debate in Britain over police priorities and handling of interracial violence.