A memorial to Arkadiusz Jóźwik, a 40-year-old Polish immigrant who was killed in Harlow, England, in August. Police are investigating the death as a possible hate crime. (Griff Witte/The Washington Post)

He went down with a single punch.

Arkadiusz Jóźwik — shy, devoted to his mother and an immigrant to Britain from his native Poland — was out with friends late last month enjoying pizza and drinks when they were set upon by a group of teens, some reportedly shouting anti-Polish slurs.

The punch knocked Jóźwik to the ground, the back of his head slapping the concrete of the rundown pedestrian plaza in this hardscrabble London suburb. The 40-year-old was taken off of life support days later.

Now Jóźwik’s violent death is reverberating throughout Britain, and across Europe, as the latest evidence of a post-Brexit surge in suspected hate crimes directed at immigrants.

When anti-immigrant assaults first started rising after the June 23 vote to leave the European Union, authorities expressed hope that the spike would prove temporary.





But nearly three months later, the rate of such crimes remains sharply higher than it was last year, generating fears that the xenophobic passions unleashed by the Brexit vote have created a new normal of fear and intimidation for the country’s approximately 8.5 million foreign-born residents.

[Killing in Britain spawns a reckoning over rhetoric on eve of E.U. vote]

It may get worse: Those who backed Brexit, expecting the vote to leave the European Union would yield mass deportations and a ban on new immigrant arrivals, are bound to be disappointed by the years-long bureaucratic slog that lies ahead, which could lead to even more violence as frustration sets in.

Eric Hind, a Polish-born friend of Jóźwik’s, said the day after the vote that he received messages on Facebook: “What time is the next bus back to Poland?” His mother and his sister were told by their factory manager that “now you Poles need to pack up your bags and go back home.”

The vote mandated no such thing. But the threat of violence may force them out just the same.

“People are scared and horrified. I’m scared and horrified,” Hind said “My wife wants to move back to Poland. I keep saying, ‘Let’s not panic.’ Arek’s death was one case. But it could have been me.”

Such is the depth of concern that the Polish national police sent two officers to Harlow last week to patrol the town, which was largely built in the 1950s as a concrete-clad socialist utopia for London residents who were bombed out during the Blitz.

From left, Acting Inspector Steve Wright, Polish Police 2nd Lieutenant Bartosz Czernicki, Polish Police Chief Sergeant Dariusz Tybura and Essex Police officer PC Paul Harrison talk as they walk through Harlow, north of London, on Sept. 15. (Nick Ansell/AFP/Getty Images)

In more recent decades, Harlow has struggled with closed factories and wide income disparities, even as immigrants have moved in to launch businesses and get a foothold in their new land.

“A lot of people here feel like they’ve been left behind. Britain’s moving on at a huge pace, but their situation is getting worse and worse,” said Owen Jones, senior organizer for the anti-extremism group Hope Not Hate. “Then they see immigrants driving around in nicer cars and living better lives than they do. It creates even more resentment.”

In the pedestrian plaza where Jóźwik died — its storefronts dominated by liquor shops, betting parlors and faded pubs — officers with “Policja” stamped on their blue uniforms are walking the beat alongside those bearing the more familiar bulbous black caps of a British bobby.

The Polish officers have no formal police powers in Britain. But their highly unusual assignment was intended to help “engage with members of the Polish community who do not speak English as their first language,” according to the local Essex police force.

The arrival of the officers followed days after a visit to London by Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski, who cited Jóźwik’s death and other attacks in arguing that the Brexit vote had spawned an eruption of violence against immigrants who “deserve to be respected and secured.”

[Jo Cox, slain British politician, was a champion of refugees]

Last week, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker used his annual state-of-the-E.U. address to speak out about Jóźwik’s killing and the rising British nativism it has come to represent.

“We Europeans can never accept Polish workers being harassed, beaten up or even murdered on the streets of Essex,” Juncker said.

British leaders, too, have strongly condemned the rise in hate crimes. Prime Minister Theresa May has addressed the issue from the floor of the House of Commons and phoned her Polish counterpart to express her “deep regret” at crimes such as the attack on Jóźwik.

Here in Harlow, his death has spawned a reckoning over the town’s problems with anti-immigrant prejudice.

“This isn’t a town where everyone has pitchforks and is outright racist,” said Emma Toal, deputy leader of the Harlow Council. “There’s a big portion of the community that is shocked by this and doesn’t want any Polish person to have to fear violence.”

But Toal acknowledged there were some in Harlow who are hostile toward immigrants, and who had been deceived by pro-Brexit politicians into thinking that a vote to leave would force foreigners to head home.

“People thought they were voting to take back control, and that many immigrants wouldn’t be allowed to stay,” she said.

Those with such views may be a minority in Harlow. But they aren’t difficult to find.

[Immigration backlash at the heart of British push to leave the E.U.]

The tree-shaded spot where Jóźwik was attacked is now strewn with flowers, candles, Polish soccer jerseys and messages of peace. “Down with racism!” reads a hand-lettered sign in black ink.

A man with a buzz cut walking past the site, his pit bull tugging at the end of a short leash, explained to a young child one recent day that the tribute was “a memorial for something that happened to scum.”

Others here vehemently deny that the town has a problem with prejudice, and say Jóźwik was killed not because he was a foreigner but because he was unlucky — chosen randomly by teens looking for trouble.

“It had nothing to do with racism, but it’s become politicized,” said Sue Keningale, a local resident who puffed on an electronic cigarette as she waited outside a laundromat. “Yeah, it was a Polish guy who died. But what would have happened if it was an English guy?”

Keningale said the real problem in Harlow is that young people have nothing to do, and police do little to disrupt violent behavior. “There’s been trouble here before with the kids. It’s not a new thing,” she said.

Hind said he doesn’t believe the attack was random. He said he had spoken with another friend who survived the assault by the teens who told him that “the whole atmosphere changed when they said they were Polish.”

“It was a hate crime,” Hind said of the killing of the burly factory worker. “It’s because of where he came from.”

Police have confirmed they are investigating that possibility.

Hind, an information technology manager who organized a peace vigil in his friend’s honor, said he worries that for all their rhetoric, authorities aren’t taking the rise in hate crimes seriously. He described the presence of the Polish officers as “a joke,” and said it would do nothing substantive to address immigrants’ concerns for their safety.

That makes him nervous, even as he resists his wife’s pleas to move the family away from the hostility they feel in Harlow and back to their homeland.

“I’m not going to let this destroy everything I’ve worked for,” Hind said. “I came here to achieve something.”

Karla Adam contributed to this report from London.

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