Inmate Who Stabbed Derek Chauvin Was Inspired By Black Lives Matter Movement: Report

Source: Minnesota Department of Corrections

The inmate who stabbed the former police officer who murdered George Floyd chose to carry out the violence behind bars in Arizona on Black Friday because it symbolized the Black Lives Matter movement, according to a new report.

Derek Chauvin was attacked the day after Thanksgiving by John Turscak with what the U.S. Attorney’s office described as an “improvised knife” used to stab the disgraced former Minneapolis police officer 22 times, NBC News reported late Friday afternoon.

Turscak — a 52-year-old who is now facing charges of attempted murder, assault with intent to commit murder, assault with a dangerous weapon and assault resulting in serious bodily injury — told officials that he had been contemplating the attack at the Federal Correctional Institution in Tucson because he knew Chauvin was a high-profile inmate.

More from NBC News:

Turscak told federal prosecutors he chose that day, the day after Thanksgiving commonly known as “Black Friday,” to symbolize the Black Lives Matter movement and the “Black Hand” symbol of the Mexican Mafia.

The Bureau of Prisons previously said employees at the prison helped save Chauvin’s life following the stabbing.

Chauvin was listed in stable condition following the stabbing.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, whose state prosecution of Chauvin led to a 22.5-year sentence for the former cop, said he was “sad” to learn of the prison stabbing.

But the reactions across social media were decidedly the polar opposite of Ellison’s as timelines were replete with suggestions that the stabbing was the result of karmic forces that have revealed themselves as jail justice — a slang term for an inmate administering out self-determined punishment toward another inmate.

Because Floyd’s murder was such a touchpoint along racial lines, social media users also found some irony in the fact that Chauvin was stabbed on a day that’s been designated as “Black Friday” for reasons not having to do with prison violence.

Chauvin was stabbed just days after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the latest appeal of his conviction for murdering Floyd. That development all but ensured Chauvin would serve every second of his concurrent state and federal sentences.

That came months after the Minnesota Court of Appeals in April rejected an appeal of Chauvin’s conviction and instead ruled that he remains a murderer who killed Floyd by nonchalantly pressing his knee into the unarmed and handcuffed Black man’s neck for the better part of 10 minutes while a crowd (and eventually, the world) watched in horror.

Months before that, the Minnesota Supreme Court issued an order denying Chauvin’s appeal petition for further review, meaning his last hope was with the U.S. Supreme Court.

It was decidedly in that context that the social media memes ruthlessly mocked Chuavin — though not nearly as ruthlessly as when the former cop ignored bystanders’ pleas for him to stop murdering Floyd on that fateful day in 2020.

SEE ALSO:

Civil Rights Leaders Mark 3rd Anniversary Of George Floyd’s Murder

Minneapolis Police Reform: What To Know About The Approved Public Safety Overhauling

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