S05E15 – Racialized Policing in the UK and Protesting in Churches

In this episode of Finding Common Battle Grounds, we tackle two recent news topics. The first is the resolution of the case in the UK against Vickrum Digwa, who killed Henry Nowak in December 2025 (FYI, Digwa was sentenced to life in prison). The case has apparently become a huge issue on the right in the US (and in the UK), and is being used to suggest that police have become so sensitive to race that they immediately side with racial minorities in any situation. Josh and Tom seem to take this position. Ryan, who hasn’t heard much about the case, makes a different argument: police officers have been trained to be more sensitive to race because of a long, well-documented history of police officers discriminating against racial and ethnic minorities. As a result, they are not going to immediately privilege white individuals. That means they will now get situations wrong in favor of racial minorities AND white individuals in equal measure… And that suggests their training is working. Eventually, Josh and Tom agree, for the most part. We then turn to a recent news announcement by the State of Minnesota that they are not going to prosecute the protestors who interrupted a church service during the ICE occupation of Minneapolis. Josh and Tom condemn this decision. Ryan argues that the federal government politicized this when they decided to charge all of the participants in the protest with two federal felonies that could result in decades of prison time, even though the protestors did nothing violent. Minnesota’s government is, in turn, politicizing this by not prosecuting them. Ryan’s argument is that he would have been fine with all of them being charged with a trespassing misdemeanor and having to pay a $1,000 fine, but charging them with federal felonies is ridiculous. Josh and Tom agree for the most part, but point out that the victims were the people in the church. Ryan agrees.