Last week, ex-police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. The evidence on the murder charges was weak; the evidence on manslaughter was significantly stronger. Still, the jury took only 10 hours and zero questions to come to its conclusion: guilty on all counts.
In and of itself, the Chauvin case never should have been a national news story. After all, an average of three suspects are shot by police every day in the United States, and thousands of homicides that have nothing whatsoever to do with the police take place in the United States every year. Theoretically, national news stories should be indicative of profound national problems, not man-bites-dog statistical rarities.
