I wouldn’t jump to assume race is the first thing the police go to.

This is correct: it wasn’t the false racist slur that made the police ignore Novak, it was the fact that the murderer had a witness to back up his line that he was attacked.

Unfortunately, people who are handcuffed often fake injury or distress in order to get the police to free them so that they can then either escape or attack somebody. Tragically, the officers here wrongly believed that’s what Novak was doing. He had a visible minor injury and they assumed that’s what he was referring to, and that such a minor injury wasn’t something for them to worry about. Possibly the police should change their procedures in order to properly medically assess detainees who claim to be injured.