World News Day: Deaths investigated at a sobering station

WROCLAW, Poland — At 10:52 p.m., Dmytro Nikiforenko, a 25-year-old man from Ukraine, stopped moving. Two police officers were still sitting on top of him, one hitting him on the head and the other choking him.

The other participants visible in the video footage — two other police officers, two employees from Sober Station (a facility designed to accommodate intoxicated people) and a doctor — were simply observing, joking and laughing.

When they noticed the victim was unresponsive, doctors checked his pulse. The police who beat him started CPR.

But Niki Folenko is dead.

Jacek Harlukowicz of Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza was shocked when he saw the footage recorded by security cameras.

He first heard about the Ukrainian’s death in August 2021. A police informant wrote to him: “Find out what happened at the sober station in Wroclaw on July 30. The boy is dead. The head must be rolled. If you don’t cover the case, it will be swept under the rug.”

It’s a hint that leads Harlukowicz to reveal the truth about what happened that night. The investigation won him the Polish Journalism Grand Prix.

When Harlukowicz first learned the story, he was reminded of a similar incident in May 2016, when police shot a young man with a stun gun, also in Wroclaw. He died hours after being beaten and strangled at a police station.

Other reporters quickly spotted the Ukrainian, but did not provide any details to the public.

A staff member at the station tried to convince reporters that Niki Forenko was drunk and violent and aggressive when he was picked up by police from a city bus. They drove him to the station, tied him up, and after a while he began to have trouble breathing.

but it is not the truth.

The last hours of Nikiforenko’s life were recorded and captured by security cameras.

The footage clearly shows that he has remained calm.

“When I watched with them, the thought-provoking station staff didn’t see anything inappropriate in the recording,” Harlukowicz said. “Experienced cops I’ve spoken to are scared that in the 21st century, in a European country, you could be beaten to death for getting drunk on a bus.”