“Everything is riding on the outcome of the trial,” said Keith Mayes, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota’s Department of African American and African Studies. “Yes, Chauvin is on trial, and it’s about the Floyd murder. … But an argument can be made it’s about all the other folks that didn’t receive justice, too. That’s why a conviction is necessary for us to reimagine what a future can look like, because these cases continue to happen until the police are thoroughly reformed.”…

Still, while some look at Chauvin as emblematic of law enforcement as an institution that’s misguided at best or racist at worst, others see what happened last Memorial Day as an anomaly: that Floyd’s death was the rare exception instead of proof that police are the bad guys.

“I try in my head to better understand that broad-brush mentality, but I have a hard time,” said Tim Leslie, the Dakota County sheriff. “If a plumber gets arrested for DUI, are all plumbers drunks? If a pilot crashes a plane, are all pilots incompetent? No. Yet Chauvin does that, he murders somebody, and all law enforcement needs to be reformed. Is that the same?”