Derek Chauvin, ex-police officer who killed George Floyd, is stabbed in prison
The incident occurred in a medium-security prison in Tucson, Arizona, where he was transferred in August 2022 from a federal facility
Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer serving a 22-and-a-half-year sentence for killing George Floyd, was seriously injured in a stabbing this Friday in a medium-security federal prison in Tucson, Arizona. Chauvin was attacked by another inmate, according to the Associated Press. The agency said emergency responders improvised life-saving measures for Chauvin, 47, before he was taken to a hospital.
The name of Chauvin’s attacker has not been released by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which admitted in a brief statement that an inmate, whom they did not identify, was attacked this Friday around 12:30 at the Federal Correctional Institution of Tucson. “Responding employees isolated and contained the incident and at no time was the public in danger,” states the message from federal authorities. Visits to the prison have been suspended, for now. The FBI is investigating the events.
It is not the first mishap in the prison in which Chauvin is serving his sentence. In November of last year, an inmate in the medium-security area got hold of a gun and threatened to kill a visitor. The man fired the gun, but it malfunctioned and no one was injured.
Chauvin was transferred to Tucson in August 2022 from a maximum security state prison in Minnesota, where he spent most of his time in solitary confinement in a nine-square-foot cell for his own safety. The federal prison in Arizona has a population of 266 inmates who are divided into maximum and medium security systems.
Chauvin is serving two sentences simultaneously, a 21-year federal sentence for violating Floyd’s civil rights and a 22½-year state sentence for second-degree murder.
Floyd died on May 25, 2020, after Chauvin pressed a knee on his neck for 9½ minutes on the street outside a convenience store where Floyd was suspected of trying to pass a counterfeit $20 bill.The man said at least 25 times that he couldn’t breathe. The killing, captured on video by a woman passing by, sparked months of protests in various parts of the world and raised racial tension during the administration of Donald Trump.
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