Former police officer Derek Chauvin was stabbed 22 times in the prison where he is serving his sentence. POOL / REUTERS
The inmate who stabbed police officer Derek Chauvin last week in a federal prison was charged Friday, December 1, with attempted homicide. He had stabbed a total of 22 times to the man who was sentenced to more than 20 years in prison for the murder of George Floyd, an African-American whom he had come to arrest for a minor offense. The death of the latter, in May 2020, after having suffocated for many minutes under the knee of Derek Chauvin, had provoked a large anti-racist movement in the United States and beyond American borders.
Derek Chauvin, a white police officer then a veteran law enforcement officer in Minneapolis (north), remained kneeling for nearly ten minutes on the neck of George Floyd, aged 46, and remained indifferent to the interventions of shocked passers-by and to the supplications of the forty-year-old. Serving a sentence of 22 and a half years in prison, Derek Chauvin, 47, was attacked on November 24, 2023 in a library of a federal prison in Tucson, Arizona. He survived his injuries.
Symbolically stabbed on “Black Friday”
One of his fellow inmates, John Turscak, 52, is accused of attacking him using a homemade knife. The man told investigators that he had knowingly chosen the date of the attack, the day of “Black Friday” (literally Black Friday) famous for its commercial discounts, in reference to the anti-racist movement “Black Lives Matter”, always a judicial source. “Mr. Turscak told prison officers he allegedly killed (Mr. Chauvin) if they hadn’t reacted so quickly.continues a document from a judicial source.
The federal prosecutors’ office in Tucson said it had charged John Turscack with several counts, including attempted homicide, punishable by up to 20 years in prison, and assault causing serious injury. The man is also accused of stabbing another inmate more than 20 times, again with a knife. Although no press release or complaint gives the full name of Mr. Chauvin, an official source confirmed to AFP that the victim was indeed the former Minneapolis police officer. No information has been released on his current state of health.