If a city had a pulse, Minneapolis’ collective heart would have been racing.

Hours before the former police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty of murdering George Floyd, public radio hosts spoke of a city that has already endured collective trauma. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, in a Monday press conference with the mayors of the state’s twin major cities, Minneapolis and St. Paul, said that anxiety levels in the city were high—and should be, because the work necessary to create real equality and justice has not been done. In a downtown Minneapolis bar, a woman serving drinks pointed to the boards already covering every one of the business’ more than 7-ft.-tall plate glass windows. By Tuesday morning, almost everything in this city was boarded up, closed for business and, in some cases, behind temporary fences or razor wire.