Experts gauge impact of Chauvin case on policing

Former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin’s conviction and lengthy prison sentence in George Floyd’s murder could lead to better police hiring and training, law enforcement experts say. It could spur more effort to build trust among officers and communities.

And it might have made the public — and future jurors — more receptive to longstanding complaints about police interactions with minorities.

Even so, the case was so unusual — from bystander video of Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck for 91⁄ minutes to police de

2 partment brass testifying against him — that it’s difficult to say it was a watershed moment for lasting change.

“The conviction was critically important, in part, because of how blatant the violence was and because of the way in which the video couldn’t allow the lies that police often tell in these situations to dominate the narrative,” said Sheila A. Bedi, a professor at Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law and director of the school’s Community Justice & Civil Rights Clinic.

But the outcome in Chauvin’s case — including his 221⁄ 2- year sentence — doesn’t address deep- rooted issues of race and violence affecting police interactions with minorities that don’t result in charges or convictions against officers, said Bedi, who has been involved in use- of- force lawsuits against the Chicago Police Department.