The Hennepin County Government Center in downtown Minneapolis is one of those faceless bureaucratic

buildings.

They kind of place you go to track down a birth certificate or a county record.

It's mostly court stuff.

John Collins from Minnesota Public Radio.

He knows this building pretty well.

So, it will be where people go when they have to pay a traffic ticket or contest one or

maybe get some sort of license or something.

It's not like a place you've been just for normal life.

Oh yeah, I mean, I go for my job, I go there like pretty regularly.

But over the last few weeks, John's watched the government center transform, close itself

off.

There's a ring of perimeter fencing now, concertina wire.

Employees who work here are being told to stay home.

Court hearings have been moved out.

This building has a singular purpose now.

It will be the Chauvin trial and that's pretty much it.

The Chauvin trial.

As in the trial for the police officer accused of killing George Floyd.

Over the last year, George Floyd's death sparked an international protest movement and amplified

calls to defund the police.

In Minneapolis, riot and protest sometimes intermingled.

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