John Turscak, 52, one of Derek Chauvin’s fellow inmates, was charged with attempted murder after he stabbed Derek Chauvin, the police officer who killed George Floyd, twenty-two times on November 24 in a federal prison library in Tucson, Arizona had, the public prosecutor announced on Friday, December 1st. Derek Chauvin survived his injuries, but no information about his current health status has been released.
John Turscak told investigators that he knowingly chose the date of the attack, Black Friday, known for its commercial discounts, in reference to the anti-racist movement Black Lives Matter, again according to the same source. “Mr. Turscak told prison officials that he allegedly killed [M. Chauvin] “If they hadn’t reacted so quickly,” the document continues.
Federal prosecutors in Tucson announced that they had indicted Mr. Turscak on several counts, including attempted murder, punishable by 20 years in prison, and assault causing great bodily harm. The man is also accused of stabbing another inmate more than twenty times, again with a knife.
A prison sentence of twenty-two and a half years
Although no press release or complaint mentions Mr. Chauvin’s full name, an official source confirmed to Agence France-Presse that the victim was indeed the former Minneapolis police officer.
The death of George Floyd in May 2020 during his arrest sparked a major anti-racist movement in the United States and beyond American borders. Derek Chauvin, a white police officer and then a veteran Minneapolis police officer, knelt on the neck of 46-year-old George Floyd for nearly ten minutes, remaining indifferent to the interventions of shocked bystanders and the forty-year-old’s moans. old.
He was convicted of murder by the Minnesota state courts after a closely watched trial in 2021. He has since served a 22.5-year prison sentence.
In November, the United States Supreme Court rejected Derek Chauvin’s appeal of that conviction. The former police officer asked for the verdict to be overturned, saying extreme media coverage of the case and the risk of unrest deprived him of a “fair” trial.