A Weak Charge

3rd degree murder. Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis Police Officer who murdered George Floyd, live on camera, by holding him down and pressing his knee into the victim’s neck, for 8 1/2 minutes, has been charged with 3rd degree murder.
3rd degree murder is bullshit. It’s basically a manslaughter charge. It’s the old “I didn’t mean to kill him, he just died on me” defense. There are three major bits of evidence against that. There’s the video itself, of course. Then there are all the eyewitnesses, who told him, repeatedly, ‘Hey, you’re killing that guy’ and ‘maybe you should let up a bit.’ He didn’t. He knew what he was doing, and he fully intended to do it. The third bit of evidence is his record. He had a habit of doing these sort of things.
He’s been charged with various being a bad cop charges, like 16 times I believe it was, sometimes for excessive violence, once or twice he shot somebody, but he was still on the force. Amy Klobuchar, back when she was the county prosecutor there, could have ended this guys’s career, but she didn’t. Not really a big Black Lives Matter person, that Amy Klobuchar.
And none of the other officers present have been charged with Jack Squat.

I think I see what’s happening here. The authorities think that maybe they can end the riots just by the announcement that Chauvin has been arrested, and they’ll say MURDER really loud and ‘3rd degree’ really soft, and most people will be placated. After all, what are people going to do?