Derek Chauvin, the previous Minneapolis police officer convicted of murdering George Floyd, was stabbed by one other inmate and severely injured Friday at a federal jail in Arizona, an individual accustomed to the matter instructed The Associated Press.
The assault occurred on the Federal Correctional Institution, Tucson, a medium-security jail that has been stricken by safety lapses and staffing shortages. The particular person 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 particular person 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 remedy 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 looking 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 physician Larry Nassar was stabbed by a fellow inmate at a federal penitentiary in Florida.
It can also be the second main incident on the Tucson federal jail in a bit of over a yr. In November 2022, an inmate on the facility’s low-security jail camp pulled out a gun and tried to shoot a customer within the head. The weapon, which the inmate shouldn’t have had, misfired and nobody was damage.
Chauvin, 47, was despatched 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 homicide.
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 primarily saved in solitary confinement “largely for his own protection,” Nelson wrote in courtroom papers final yr.
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Chauvin’s attraction of his homicide conviction. Separately, Chauvin is making a longshot bid to overturn his federal responsible plea, claiming new proof reveals he didn’t trigger Floyd’s loss of life.
Floyd, who was Black, died on May 25, 2020, after Chauvin, who’s white, pressed a knee on his neck for 9½ minutes on the road exterior 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 nationwide reckoning with police brutality and racism.
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 lately following rich 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 secure after Nassar’s stabbing and “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski’s suicide at a federal medical middle in June.
An ongoing AP investigation has uncovered deep, beforehand unreported flaws inside the Bureau of Prisons, the Justice Department’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 different felony conduct by workers, dozens of escapes, persistent violence, deaths and extreme staffing shortages which have hampered responses to emergencies, together with inmate assaults and suicides.
Bureau of Prisons Director Colette Peters was introduced in final yr to reform the crisis-plagued company. 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 overtake problematic prisons and beef up inside affairs investigations. This month, she instructed a House Judiciary subcommittee that hiring had improved and that new hires had been outpacing retirements and different departures.
But 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 reply primary questions on company operations, like what number of correctional officers are on workers.
• Associated Press writers Amy Forliti in Minneapolis and Michael Balsamo in New York contributed to this report.
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