Derek Chauvin, the previous Minneapolis police officer convicted of murdering George Floyd, was stabbed by one other inmate and significantly injured Friday at a federal jail in Arizona, an individual acquainted with the matter informed The Related Press.
The assault occurred on the Federal Correctional Establishment, Tucson, a medium-security jail that has been suffering from safety lapses and staffing shortages. The individual was not approved to publicly talk about particulars of the assault and spoke to the AP on the situation of anonymity.
The Bureau of Prisons confirmed that an incarcerated individual was assaulted at FCI Tucson at round 12:30 p.m. native time Friday. In an announcement, the company stated responding staff contained the incident and carried out “life-saving measures” earlier than the inmate, who it didn’t title, was taken to a hospital for additional therapy and analysis.
No staff had been injured and the FBI was notified, the Bureau of Prisons stated. Visiting on the facility, which has about 380 inmates, has been suspended.
Messages searching for remark had been left with Chauvin’s attorneys and the FBI.
Chauvin’s stabbing is the second high-profile assault on a federal prisoner within the final 5 months. In July, disgraced sports doctor Larry Nassar was stabbed by a fellow inmate at a federal penitentiary in Florida.
It is usually the second main incident on the Tucson federal jail in somewhat over a yr. In November 2022, an inmate on the facility’s low-security jail camp pulled out a gun and attempted to shoot a visitor in the head. The weapon, which the inmate shouldn’t have had, misfired and nobody was damage.
Chauvin, 47, was sent to FCI Tucson from a maximum-security Minnesota state jail in August 2022 to concurrently serve a 21-year federal sentence for violating Floyd’s civil rights and a 22½-year state sentence for second-degree murder.
Chauvin’s lawyer, Eric Nelson, had advocated for holding him out of common inhabitants and away from different inmates, anticipating he’d be a goal. In Minnesota, Chauvin was mainly kept in solitary confinement “largely for his personal safety,” Nelson wrote in courtroom papers final yr.
Final week, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Chauvin’s appeal of his homicide conviction. Individually, Chauvin is making a longshot bid to overturn his federal guilty plea, claiming new proof reveals he didn’t trigger Floyd’s loss of life.
Floyd, who was Black, died on Might 25, 2020, after Chauvin, who’s white, pressed a knee on his neck for 9½ minutes on the road outdoors a comfort retailer the place Floyd was suspected of attempting to cross a counterfeit $20 invoice.
Bystander video captured Floyd’s fading cries of “I can’t breathe.” His loss of life touched off protests worldwide, a few of which turned violent, and compelled a national reckoning with police brutality and racism.
The Washington Submit by way of Getty Photos
Three different former officers who had been on the scene obtained lesser state and federal sentences for his or her roles in Floyd’s loss of life.
Chauvin’s stabbing comes because the federal Bureau of Prisons has confronted elevated scrutiny in recent times following wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein’s jail suicide in 2019. It’s one other instance of the company’s incapability to maintain even its highest profile prisoners protected after Nassar’s stabbing and “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski’s suicide at a federal medical heart in June.
An ongoing AP investigation has uncovered deep, beforehand unreported flaws throughout the Bureau of Prisons, the Justice Division’s largest legislation enforcement company with greater than 30,000 staff, 158,000 inmates and an annual price range of about $8 billion.
AP reporting has revealed rampant sexual abuse and other criminal conduct by workers, dozens of escapes, persistent violence, deaths and severe staffing shortages which have hampered responses to emergencies, together with inmate assaults and suicides.
Bureau of Prisons Director Colette Peters was brought in last year to reform the crisis-plagued agency. She vowed to alter archaic hiring practices and produce new transparency, whereas emphasizing that the company’s mission is “to make good neighbors, not good inmates.”
Testifying earlier than the Senate Judiciary Committee in September, Peters touted steps she’d taken to overhaul problematic prisons and beef up inside affairs investigations. This month, she informed a Home Judiciary subcommittee that hiring had improved and that new hires had been outpacing retirements and different departures.
However Peters has additionally irritated lawmakers who stated she reneged on her promise to be candid and open with them. In September, senators scolded her for forcing them to attend greater than a yr for solutions to written questions and for claiming that she couldn’t answer basic questions about agency operations, like what number of correctional officers are on workers.
Related Press writers Amy Forliti in Minneapolis and Michael Balsamo in New York contributed to this report.
Comply with Michael Sisak at x.com/mikesisak and ship confidential ideas by visiting https://www.ap.org/tips/.
