Hello and welcome to the Intelligence on Economist Radio. I'm your host, Jason Palmer.

Every weekday we provide fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

The conviction of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin from murder last month came as something of a surprise.

But the evidence against him had been damning.

When Mr. Chauvin knelt on George Floyd's neck at the corner of 38th in Chicago on a warm cloudy night in Minneapolis a year ago today, there was little unusual about the scene.

Not for Mr. Floyd who had been arrested before. Not for Mr. Chauvin who had been disciplined twice for misconduct and had 17 complaints against him.

And not for America where black people are twice as likely as whites to be killed by the police and where those killings have routinely led to widespread protests.

Eric Garner in New York in July 2014 then Michael Brown in Missouri in August and 12 year old Tamir Rice in November. Walter Scott, Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, Stefan Clark, Brianna Taylor shot eight times in her home last March.

Those are just the cases that made news and sparked protests. Police kill on average three Americans every single day.

Yet they're rarely prosecuted even for killings that seem unjustified. That is down to longstanding legal indemnities and the political heft of police unions that say officers who are themselves in the line of fire must be protected.

But those protections are often hard to justify.

The day after Mr. Floyd's death four of the officers involved were fired and the first organized demonstrations took place in Minneapolis.

By the next day they had spread to other cities Los Angeles, Memphis, Portland.

By the end of the month protests had happened in more than 75 cities.

All these people out here that's been on the front lines with me every day that started, they ain't leaving either. They ain't going to stop. My kids ain't going to stop. Nobody's going to stop this.

Until this achieves, we'll keep going.

Authorities imposed curfews. More than 4,000 protesters had been arrested and the movement went international. Australia, France, Spain, Germany, here in Britain.

In Washington, a different call for change was taking shape. On June 8th, the day before George Floyd's funeral, a bill first appeared in the House of Representatives.

It's pretty exciting time. This is a transformational piece of legislation. This is an important day.

It pushed for a broad package of reforms that activists had spent years calling for. A registry of officers with histories of abuse,

mandatory use of body and dashboard cameras. A reduction in the relentless militarization of police forces,

the prohibition of the kind of no-knock warrant that led to Breonna Taylor's death, or the chokeholds that led to Eric Garner's.

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