Yes, Chauvin has been arrested and charged with murder.

Yes, the usual "voices of reason" are issuing a new round of calls for "police reform," just as they do after every police murder of an unarmed, nonviolent civilian.

No, murder charges and "police reform" aren't going to fix the problem. Long hot summer, here we come.

It's tempting to believe that protest marches, violent confrontations, looting, burning, and riots can change police behavior, or perhaps that they COULD change that behavior if applied frequently and vigorously enough.

That kind of widespread delusion is, as Thoreau put it, "a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root," with predictable results.

If protest marches, violent confrontations, looting, burning, and riots followed every police murder of an unarmed, nonviolent civilian, we wouldn't see fewer police murders of unarmed, nonviolent civilians. We'd just see bigger police overtime budgets.