Hi, I'm Dan Pramack and welcome to Axios Recap, presented by Morgan Stanley. Today is Wednesday, April 21st. Global COVID cases are up. Super League supporters are down and we're focused on what the Chauvin verdict means for future police brutality cases.

Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin yesterday was convicted of murdering

George Floyd, with a jury returning unanimous guilty verdicts on all three charges, second

degree manslaughter, third degree murder, and the most severe charge, second degree murder.

It was, of course, a discreet case with a discrete set of facts,

but it also happened within a much broader context of police officers being acquitted in past

cases, as evidenced by how everyone was on tenterhooks for what seemed to be a prosecutorial slam dunk.

And the question now is if what happened over the past month will impact future prosecutions, for better or for worse.

We'll discuss that in a moment with Damon Hewitt, acting president of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, but first just a quick history lesson to catch us all up.

George Floyd was killed by Derek Chauvin last May 25th.

Police initially said he had died due to a, quote, medical incident, but soon a bystander's

video blew up that narrative.

Chauvin was arrested two days later, but protesters, politicians, and pundits almost immediately

asked the Hennepin County Attorney's Office for a more severe murder charge

against Chauvin and charges against the three other cops at the scene, none of whom intervened.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison took the unusual step of taking over the case on June 1st

and days later up the charges against Chauvin and arrested the three other officers.

The city of Minneapolis agreed eventually to pay the Floyd family a $27 million settlement, just as the Chauvin jury was being

impaned, and opening statements in the case began March 29th. The other three officers will be tried

in August. And then, as the case was going on, two things

happened. First, an unarmed black man named Dante Wright was killed by a cop in neighboring

Brooklyn Center during a traffic stop. Second, Congresswoman Maxine Waters called for protesters

...