Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who was convicted in the killing of George Floyd, was stabbed in a federal prison on Friday, according to the Associated Press.
The reported stabbing occurred in the Federal Correctional Institution in Tucson, Ariz., where Chauvin is currently serving two concurrent sentences for more than 20 years. The correctional facility is a medium-security prison that has recently experienced staffing shortages and security lapses, the wire service reported.
News of the attack on Chauvin was gleaned from an anonymous source and the Bureau of Prisons, the latter of which said an unnamed prisoner was assaulted around 12:30 p.m. local time Friday and is seriously injured. The incident was contained and “life-saving measures” were performed on the victim before he was taken to a hospital for further treatment, the federal agency divulged.
No prison employees were injured and the FBI was notified of the stabbing, the Bureau of Prisons added.
The Federal Correctional Institution in Tucson faced a similar incident last November, when an inmate attempted to shoot a visitor in the head with a gun. The weapon misfired, however, and no one was injured.
Chauvin’s counsel previously argued that he should be kept out of general population and away from other inmates, considering he could potentially be a target for unintentionally killing Floyd in 2020. Chauvin was kept in solitary confinement in a maximum-security Minnesota state prison before he was moved to Tucson in August 2022. He is facing a 21-year federal sentence for violating Floyd’s civil rights and a 22.5-year state sentence for second and third-degree murder.
The latest attack comes in the same week that the Supreme Court denied Chauvin’s appeal of a lower-court conviction. Chauvin’s legal team recently filed the appeal, arguing that the former Minnesota cop’s trial was held during a contentious time in the country, leading to concerns about the jury’s impartiality.
“Mr. Chauvin’s case shows the profound difficulties trial courts have to ensure a criminal defendant’s right to an impartial jury consistently when extreme cases arise,” the defense told the Supreme Court at the time of the appeal. “This was particularly true here when the jurors themselves had a vested interest in finding Mr. Chauvin guilty in order to avoid further rioting in the community in which they lived and the possible threat of physical harm to them or their families.”
In response, the High Court rejected Chauvin’s writ of certiorari in an order issued Monday.
On May 25, 2020, a viral video showed Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck as the suspect struggled to breathe. The incident, which occurred after Floyd was arrested for allegedly using a counterfeit bill, provoked widespread unrest across the U.S. at the time, leading to calls for racial justice and hostility toward police.