Disgraced former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin has been transferred to a different federal prison nine months after he was attacked and stabbed multiple times by a fellow inmate.
The convicted killer was transfered on Tuesday to the low-security penitentiary FCI Big Spring, Texas, the Federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed.
Chauvin, 47, is currently serving a 22-and-a-half year state sentence for the second-degree murder of George Floyd as well as a 21-year federal sentence for violating Floyd’s civil rights.
Floyd, who was Black, died in May 2020, after Chauvin pressed his knee into his neck for over nine minutes during an arrest over a suspected counterfeit $20 bill. The shocking video of his murder, where Floyd begged for help saying “I can’t breathe”, sparked global condemnation and triggered a wave of protests in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.
When contacted by The Independent, the BOP said it could not discuss the reasons behind moving Chauvin now, citing privacy and security reasons.
However, it comes after Chauvin was stabbed 22 times while behind bars in FCI Tucson, Arizona, in November 2023.
Prosecutors allege that fellow inmate and former Mexican Mafia gang member John Turscak attacked Chauvin with an improvised blade in the facility’s law library.
Following the attack, Turscak allegedly told investigators that he planned the stabbing one month earlier, targeting Chauvin because he was a high-profile inmate. He later denied having any desire to kill the shamed officer, according to The AP.
Federal prosecutors said that Turksac, who was serving a 30-year sentence at the time, would have killed Chauvin had correctional officers not intervened.
Turksac was charged with the attack and is awaiting trial.
Chauvin’s prison move came the same day that Thomas Lane, one of the three other Minneapolis officers charged over Floyd’s death, was released from federal prison in Colorado.
Lane, 41, had been sentenced to three years for aiding and abetting manslaughter and two-and-a-half years for violating Floyd’s civil rights after he held down and restrained Floyd while Chauvin murdered him.
The two other officers, J. Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao, remain behind bars.
The attack on Chauvin marked only one of several high-profile prisoner attacks in recent months.
In July 2023, disgraced sports doctor Larry Nassar was knifed repeatedly by a fellow inmate while behind bars in Florida.
The federal penitentiary in Tucson has also been the scene of a number of incidents including one where an inmate tried to shoot a visitor in the head in November 2022, The Arizona Star reported.
