It made it into a reality show about one cop. Not the other cops on the scene. Not the police as a whole. Not the system. Not racism. Not the oppressive nature of policing black communities.
One guy... caught on video. One..... bad apple.
A shitty narrative
His defense team was absolute dogshit. Once Chauvin landed in front of a jury, he was getting convicted of something. I suspect the prosecutors wouldn't have pushed the case without the riots, but I doubt the judge or the jury were overly swayed. They just saw a dickbag parading around with the expectation that "Qualified Immunity" was a get-out-of-jail-free card, doing obvious crimes obviously.
Perhaps Chauvin could have had his trial moved to a far more favorable venue or the prosecutors could have let him plead out on lesser charges or some shit. But putting his fate in the hands of a jury that close to the scene of the crime was a huge mistake. And not even the first in a long string of mistakes his defense council committed. At the end of the day, he got picked apart. Had he been anyone other than a cop, this verdict would have been obvious.