In a disconcerting turn of events, former Minneapolis law enforcer Derek Chauvin found himself subject to a stabbing incident within the confines of an Arizona prison where he is serving a 22-year sentence for the tragic demise of George Floyd.
Chauvin, aged 47, fell victim to an assault on Friday, as per reports from the Associated Press, transpiring at the Federal Correctional Institution in Tucson. This medium-security penitentiary has grappled with persistent issues of security lapses and inadequacies in staffing.
The Supreme Court would rather let an innocent man rot in prison for life than risk being called “racist” by the woke mob!
Today they voted not to even take officer Derek Chauvin’s case, despite the reports showing George Floyd had a lethal cocktail of drugs in his system… pic.twitter.com/Ts5Y4U72Xe
— Matt Wallace (@MattWallace888) November 20, 2023
Confirmation from the Bureau of Prisons detailed an incarcerated individual facing assault at FCI Tucson around 12:30 pm local time last Friday. The agency’s statement outlined the containment of the incident by responsive personnel, administering ‘life-saving measures’ before the unnamed inmate underwent transfer to a medical facility for further care and evaluation.
Having been relocated from a maximum-security prison in Minnesota in August 2022, Chauvin was tasked with serving concurrent sentences—21 years federally for violating Floyd’s civil rights and 22-and-a-half years at the state level for second-degree murder.
Pray for Derek Chauvin #badge1087 to pull through. pic.twitter.com/BQ1wcpxpAy
— Covfefe ✟ (@CovfefeGN) November 25, 2023
Legal counsel Eric Nelson, in a testament to foresight, had advocated for Chauvin’s segregation from the general population, anticipating the potential for him to become a marked target. Court documents from the preceding year revealed Chauvin’s predominantly solitary confinement in Minnesota, justified as a measure ‘largely for his own protection.’
The assault, a grave occurrence, left Derek Chauvin, 47, critically wounded within an Arizona prison on Friday, necessitating urgent ‘life-saving’ intervention from prison staff. Chauvin’s visage, captured via Zoom on March 17, depicts a stark contrast to his present circumstances.
George Floyd’s demise on Memorial Day 2020 catalyzed a chain of events leading to Chauvin’s conviction, where a video captured Floyd’s desperate pleas as Chauvin pressed his knee against his neck for an agonizing nine and a half minutes.
Recent developments saw the U.S. Supreme Court dismissing Chauvin’s bid to appeal his murder conviction. Simultaneously, Chauvin pursues a daring endeavor to overturn his federal guilty plea, asserting the emergence of new evidence absolving him from causing Floyd’s death.
Remarkably, no staff members incurred injuries during the Friday assault, prompting the immediate involvement of the FBI, as per the Bureau of Prisons. Visitation at the facility, housing approximately 380 inmates, underwent suspension as a precautionary measure.
Chauvin’s stabbing marks the second high-profile attack on a federal detainee within the past five months. In July, disgraced sports doctor Larry Nassar suffered a similar fate at a federal penitentiary in Florida.
This incident stands as the second significant occurrence at the Tucson federal prison in just over a year, following an episode in November 2022 where an inmate brandished a firearm in the low-security prison camp, attempting to harm a visitor. Fortunately, the weapon misfired, sparing anyone from harm.
George Floyd’s untimely demise on May 25, 2020, set in motion a series of events, globally igniting protests against police brutality. Floyd’s anguished cries of ‘I can’t breathe’ reverberated through bystander videos, sparking a worldwide reckoning with issues of police brutality and racism.
Chauvin’s stabbing incident amplifies scrutiny on the Federal Bureau of Prisons, already under the spotlight due to the high-profile suicide of financier Jeffrey Epstein in 2019. It underscores the agency’s seeming inability to secure even its most prominent detainees, as evidenced by Nassar’s stabbing and the suicide of ‘Unabomber’ Ted Kaczynski at a federal medical center in June.
