Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer serving a lengthy prison sentence for the killing of George Floyd, has been stabbed by a fellow prisoner.
A source cited by the Associated Press late Friday said Chauvin had been seriously injured in the attack at a federal prison in Arizona that afternoon. A spokesperson with the Minnesota attorney general's office later confirmed to The Daily Beast that Chauvin was stabbed at the Federal Correctional Institution, Tucson and was expected to survive.
“I am sad to hear that Derek Chauvin was the target of violence,” Attorney General Keith Ellison said in a statement. “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.”
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Gregory M. Erickson, an attorney for Chauvin, told the AP on Saturday that the former police officer's family had been kept out of the loop on his status. “As an outsider, I view this lack of communication with his attorneys and family members as completely outrageous,” Erickson said, adding that Chauvin’s family members were “not informed after his stabbing.”
The Bureau of Prisons, without naming the inmate in question, confirmed there had been an attack and said employees took “life-saving measures” to help the victim before he was taken to a hospital. Chauvin was expected to survive, according to ABC News, citing multiple unnamed sources.
Chauvin’s attorney, William Mohrman, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Daily Beast. His previous attorney, Eric Nelson, had sought to have Chauvin kept in solitary confinement for his own protection, as the ex-cop had been during his time in Minnesota state prison.
The attack came just days after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Chauvin’s appeal against his murder conviction.
Video of Chauvin fatally kneeling on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes catalyzed the massive Black Lives Matter protests of 2020. A state-level jury convicted him of murder in April 2021—catching him a 22-year sentence—while a federal court found him guilty of violating Floyd’s civil rights that December, netting him 21 years more.
