By Katherine Donlevy | New York Post
Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin –- who was convicted of murdering George Floyd — was stabbed by another inmate at a federal prison in Arizona on Friday, a source told The Associated Press.
Chauvin was seriously injured in the attack around 12:30 p.m. at Federal Correctional Institution, Tucson, according to the source and the Bureau of Prisons, which did not name the inmate in a statement to the outlet.
Sources told ABC News that Chauvin was later listed in “stable” condition and that he’s expected to survive.
Prison employees performed “life-saving measures” before Chauvin was hospitalized, the federal agency said.
Chauvin’s attacker was also taken to a hospital for further treatment and evaluation.
No employees were injured and the FBI was notified, the Bureau of Prisons said. Visiting at the facility, which houses about 380 inmates, has been suspended.
The stabbing comes just one week after the US Supreme Court rejected Chauvin’s appeal of his second-degree murder conviction in the May 2020 death of George Floyd.
Chauvin claimed new evidence shows he didn’t cause Floyd’s death, which sparked riots across the country and a prolonged debate on race relations in the US.
His lawyers also argued that Chauvin was denied a fair trial due to the publicity surrounding the case and concerns about potential violence if he was acquitted.
They had advocated for keeping his client out of the prison’s general population and away from other inmates, anticipating he’d be a target.
The ex-Minneapolis cop has been serving his 22.5-year prison sentence at FCI Tucson since he was found guilty by a state court in April 2021 of killing Floyd.
FCI Tucson, as well as other federal prisons, have been plagued by staffing shortages and security lapses.
One year earlier, an inmate at the Arizona facility’s low-security prison camp whipped out a gun and tried to shoot a visitor in the head. Fortunately, no one was hurt.
Chauvin’s stabbing also marks the second high-profile inmate attack in the last few months at a federal prison.
Disgraced sports doctor Larry Nassar — who sexually abused hundreds of gymnasts — was stabbed at least 10 times in July with a makeshift weapon inside his cell in a federal prison in Florida.
The attack on Nassar wasn’t caught by any surveillance camera.
A month earlier, infamous Unabomber Ted Kaczynski committed suicide inside his North Carolina prison cell.
Bureau of Prisons Director Colette Peters was brought in last year to tackle the federal prison system’s universal understaffing issues, escapees, rampant sexual abuse, inmate deaths and other systematic issues.