- Chauvin's attacker, identified as John Turscak, has been charged with attempted murder
Derek Chauvin, the police officer convicted of killing George Floyd, was stabbed 22 times with a “makeshift knife” in a horror prison sting last week, it has been revealed.
The assailant, identified as John Turscak, has been charged with attempted murder and allegedly told officers he would have killed the disgraced former officer if they had not acted quickly, prosecutors said.
Chauvin was targeted in the law library of the Federal Correctional Institution in Tucson, Arizona, with Turscak telling FBI agents that he had been planning the attack for about a month.
The inmate also said he chose Black Friday as the date of his attack because of its symbolic connection to the Black Lives Matter movement, which sparked nationwide protests in the summer of 2020.
It is unclear what Turscak was in prison for at the time.
Derek Chauvin was stabbed 22 times in a horror prison attack last Friday
The disgraced former police officer was targeted at the Federal Correctional Institution in Tucson, Arizona (pictured), where he was transferred in August 2022
Turscak also said he chose to attack the day after Thanksgiving because of the “Black Hand” symbol associated with the Mexican mafia gang, prosecutors said.
He remains in custody with no attorney listed in the lawsuits, and he has previously represented himself in numerous legal proceedings.
Chauvin is serving 21 years for violating Floyd's civil rights, and was originally housed in a maximum-security prison in Minnesota before being transferred to FCI Tucon in Arizona in August 2022.
He is also serving a concurrent 22 and a half year sentence for first-degree murder. He was convicted of Floyd's murder in May 2022 after pressing his knee on Floyd's neck for more than nine minutes.
The former police officer's attorney, Eric Nelson, has previously argued for his client to be kept out of the general prison population because of the high-profile nature of his crime.
As an expected target, Chauvin was mainly held in solitary confinement “largely for his own protection,” Nelson said last year.
The ex-Minneapolis police officer was sentenced to 22 and a half years in prison for Floyd's murder after pressing his knee against his neck for more than nine minutes.
Chauvin sparked nationwide protests in the summer of 2020 after Floyd's killing
Chauvin pleaded not guilty in his murder trial, claiming in his initial comments to the media last week that his trial was a “sham.”
In The Fall of Minneapolis, a new documentary exploring Floyd's death, Chauvin said via a jail phone that the death was due to the long wait for an ambulance.
He claimed the ambulance took too long to respond to the incident and that it took an 'unnormal' 20 minutes to arrive.
He also repeatedly referred to the fact that he and other officers had been trained in MRT – Maximal Restraint Technique.