Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who was convicted of manslaughter in the death of George Floyd in 2020, was critically injured after being stabbed in a federal prison in Arizona on Friday, according to the Minnesota Attorney General.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) said an inmate at the Federal Correctional Institution in Tucson was stabbed around 12:30 p.m. Friday. The agency’s release Friday about the stabbing did not name the inmate, but said responding crews contained the incident and provided “life support” before taking the man to a hospital for further treatment and evaluation. Actions were taken.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D) said Chauvin survived the stabbing.
“I am saddened to hear that Derek Chauvin was the target of violence,” Ellison said in an email through spokesman Brian Evans. “He was rightly convicted of his crimes and, like any imprisoned person, he should be able to serve his sentence without fear of reprisal or violence.”
As did The New York Times, The Associated Press reported the attack on Friday, citing an unidentified person familiar with the matter.
The BOP said no other inmates or prison staff were injured in the attack and the FBI was notified.
Chauvin will be transferred to FCI Tucson, a medium-security prison, in August 2022 to serve a 21-year federal sentence for violating Floyd’s civil rights and a 22½-year state sentence for second-degree murder, the AP reports.
A 12-member Hennepin County jury convicted Chauvin of second-degree murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter.
On Monday, the US Supreme Court rejected Chauvin’s appeal of his 2020 murder conviction. Chauvin is separately appealing his conviction on federal civil rights charges, saying new evidence shows he did not cause Floyd’s death.
Floyd, a black man, died in May 2020 after a white man named Chauvin pressed his knee against Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes. Bystander video captured the scene and Floyd’s gasping pleas of “I can’t breathe,” sparking widespread unrest across the country, spurring national condemnation of police use of force.
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