EREK CHAUVIN was born three years after George Floyd, and grew up in Cottage Grove, a suburb of the Twin Cities 20 miles from the corner where one man killed the other. Cottage Grove is a place of detached bungalows, private yards and public driveways connected by shared lawns. Several houses have large pick-up trucks parked in front. Some fly outsized American flags from their flagpoles. This is not a rich place, but it is several rungs above Cuney Homes, the complex of apartments in Houston’s third ward where Mr Floyd was raised. A boy born in Cottage Grove 30 years ago could expect to grow up in a household with an annual income of $55,000 (the median for America is $68,000). At the latest census, 85% of the inhabitants were white.