One of the former Minnesota Police Department officers convicted for the death of George Floyd, Derek Chauvin, was stabbed in prison earlier this week. Now, there are more details. According to CNN, fellow inmate John Turscak stabbed Chauvin approximately 22 times with an improvised knife in an attack. According to the federal complaint, at approximately 12:30 p.m. local time on Friday (November 24), Chauvin was in the law library at the Federal Correctional Institution in Tucson when Turscak assaulted him.
“Federal corrections offices immediately responded and deployed OC spray to subdue Turscak,” the criminal complaint said.
Turscak said he’d planned the attack for more than a month and chose Black Friday to reflect the Black Lives Matter movement and “Black Hand” symbol associated with the Mexican Mafia criminal organization. He said he would’ve killed Chauvin had someone not intervened so quickly. Turscak has been charged with three other counts, including assault with intent to commit murder, assault with a dangerous weapon and assault resulting in serious bodily injury.
“Attempted murder and assault with intent to commit murder violations each carry maximum penalties of 20 years’ incarceration, while assault with a dangerous weapon and assault resulting in serious bodily injury each carry maximum penalties of 10 years’ incarceration,” the District of Arizona’s US Attorney’s Office stated.
Chauvin is serving two concurrent sentences in Floyd’s 2020 murder in which he knelt on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes. He pleaded guilty months later to federal charges of depriving Floyd of his civil rights. He was convicted in April 2021 on state charges of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. He was sentenced to more than 21 years behind bars.