Nov. 25 (UPI) — Former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin, convicted of murder in the 2020 death of George Floyd, was stabbed and seriously injured Friday in an Arizona prison, a Minnesota state official confirmed.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison told the Star Tribune Chauvin was stabbed while serving time at the medium-security Federal Correctional Institution in Tucson when he was attacked by another inmate.
Ellison said Chauvin, 47, survived his injuries and was transported to a hospital where he is in stable condition.
“I am sad to hear that Derek Chauvin was the target of violence,” Ellison said. “He was duly convicted of his crimes and, like any incarcerated individual, he should be able to serve his sentence without fear of retaliation or violence.”
Without naming Chauvin as the victim, the Federal Bureau of Prisons issued a statement Friday indicating an assault took place at the Tucson facility at about 12:30 p.m., and that prison employees “initiated life-saving measures for one incarcerated individual.”
“Responding employees isolated and contained the incident and at no time was the public in danger,” the bureau said in a statement to NBC News.
Chauvin, who is White, was convicted in April 2021 on charges of second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in the May 25, 2020, killing of Floyd, a Black man, in Minneapolis. He is serving a 21-year federal sentence for violating Floyd’s civil rights and a 22 ½-year state sentence for second-degree murder.
A bystander used her cellphone to record most of the encounter and when it video went viral it sparked an unprecedented wave of anti-racism protests around world. The footage, which was also used in evidence at his trial, showed Chauvin holding his knee on Floyd’s neck for more than 9 minutes while ignored his protests that he couldn’t breathe before dying during an arrest.
The U.S. Supreme Court earlier this week turned down a request to review Chauvin’s conviction after Minnesota’s Supreme Court also elected not to hear the challenge.
His attorneys claimed in the appeal that Chauvin was denied a venue change of venue despite prejudicial pretrial publicity and suggested that jurors convicted him not on the merits of the case but rather to avoid further civil unrest.
