Prisoner stabbed Derek Chauvin 22 times, US says in announcing attempted murder
An inmate stabbed Derek Chauvin 22 times last week at a federal prison in Tucson, Arizona, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona said Friday in announcing an attempted murder charge.
The inmate, John Turscak, 52, who is accused of stabbing Mr. Chauvin with a makeshift knife on Nov. 24, told investigators that he had been thinking about attacking Mr. Chauvin for about a month because Mr. Chauvin — who served more than 20 years in prison for the murder of George Floyd – is a high-profile inmate, according to charging documents.
Mr. Chauvin survived the attack.
According to a criminal complaint, Mr. Turscak attacked Mr. Chauvin in the law library of the Federal Correction Institution in Tucson. Officers responded immediately and used pepper spray to subdue Mr. Turscak, court documents state.
Mr. Turscak told the officers that he would have killed Mr. Chauvin “if they had not responded so quickly,” according to the complaint.
In an interview two days later with FBI agents, the inmate denied wanting to kill Mr. Chauvin but revealed that he had been planning the attack for about a month, the complaint said.
Mr Turscak said the date of the stabbing, the day after Thanksgiving, known as Black Friday, was “symbolic of the Black Lives Matter movement and the ‘Black Hand’ symbol associated with the Mexican Mafia criminal organization ” according to the charging documents.
In addition to the attempted murder charge, Mr. Turscak was charged with assault with intent to commit murder, assault with a dangerous weapon and assault resulting in serious bodily injury, federal prosecutors said said in a press release.
It was unclear Friday whether Mr. Turscak had a lawyer and what sentence he was serving in prison.
The attempted murder charges carry a maximum of 20 years in prison, while the assault charges carry a maximum of 10 years each, prosecutors said.
Mr. Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer who is white, killed Mr. Floyd, who is Black, during an arrest on a street corner in South Minneapolis in May 2020.
Mr. Chauvin knelt on Mr. Floyd for nine and a half minutes as Mr. Floyd lay handcuffed and face down in the street.
Mr. Floyd’s killing was captured on video and sparked the largest protests in a generation against police brutality and racism.
Mr. Chauvin is serving a 22-and-a-half-year sentence on the state murder charge, and a concurrent sentence of just over 20 years for violating Mr. Floyd’s constitutional rights.
Glenn Thrush reporting contributed.