Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who was convicted in the 2020 murder of George Floyd, was stabbed Friday in a federal prison in Arizona, the office of Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison confirmed.
The stabbing incident left him in a critical condition requiring urgent medical attention. It took a quick response from employees assigned at the prison to save his life.
“An incarcerated individual” was assaulted at the Federal Correctional Institution in Tucson at approximately 12:30 p.m., the Bureau of Prisons said Friday.
“Responding employees initiated life-saving measures for one incarcerated individual,” and that person was transferred to a hospital for treatment, the bureau said in a release. “No employees were injured during the incident,” the release said.
Chauvin was assaulted at the medium-security prison while serving two concurrent sentences in Floyd’s murder.
In April 2021, Chauvin was convicted on state charges of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. He was sentenced to 22 and a half years in prison. Months later, Chauvin pleaded guilty to federal charges of depriving Floyd of his civil rights and was sentenced to 21 years in prison.
Chauvin, who is White, knelt on Floyd’s neck and back for more than 9 minutes on May 25, 2020, after officers responded to reports suspecting Floyd used a counterfeit $20 at a Minneapolis corner store. Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, was handcuffed and lying face down on a street as he pleaded he couldn’t breathe.
Floyd’s killing sparked massive racial injustice protests across the nation and around the world over the way police treat people of color, particularly Black Americans in the US. An investigation by the Minnesota Department of Human Rights revealed that Minneapolis and its police department engaged in “a pattern or practice of race discrimination,” according to a 2022 report.
