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Comment by simondw | Hacker News Reader

> The office involved should be charged or arrested based on the circumstances and evidence

Obviously. But they weren't, and given precedent, probably never would have been. That's why this is happening.

The officer in question has been charged with murder. The Minnesota Governor and AG were both advocating for charges basically since day 1 and well before the protests so it's not at all clear the turmoil influenced his arrest.

There was more than one murderer. There were 4 murderers. The police chief said as such, which is unprecedented for a police chief to say.

To the contrary, the prosecutor had this to say about why he had not pressed charges:

'But my job in the end is to prove he violated a criminal statute - but there is other evidence that does not support a criminal charge.'[0]

This quotation is from a tabloid, but the quote--and the DA's failure to say unequivocally that he would prosecute Floyd's killer, Chauvin--contributed to the riots.

And then Chauvin was arrested the day after riots started.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8367221/Prosecutors...

Attorney General != District Attorney last time I checked.

DAs decide whether to file murder charges. AGs are not relevant to the process.

If I, as a citizen, went along with three cronies to murder a man, those three cronies would all catch murder charges as well.

There's lots of precedent of officers being charged and arrested. Not often enough, and they are especially acquitted too often, but the public perception that they aren't charged is a function of media narrative, not fact.

The cop in question had 18 prior complaints against him.

I don't know about you, but if I had 18 complaints against me at work, I would probably have got in trouble by now, and I'm not talking about two "letters of reprimand".

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/01/us/derek-chauvin-what-we-...

Yeah, I’d be in big trouble. My industry has yet to unionize.

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