Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was recently stabbed 22 times by a fellow inmate at FCI Tucson. The attack occurred in the prison’s law library on Nov. 24, and Turscak, a former member of the Mexican Mafia and FBI informant, told investigators he had been planning to attack Chauvin for a month. Turscak has since been charged with attempted murder. Maria, a spokesperson for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, said that the number of incidents in the prison system is based on the number of guilty findings of assault with serious injury and killing in its institutions, leaving out guilty findings of “assault without serious injury”. The guilty findings in the past reflect the “strength and ability of the administration”. The bureau maintains safety protocols and takes corrective actions when necessary to safeguard people in its custody, it monitors transfer, temporary release, and community activities of certain incarcerated individuals.
Chauvin, convicted of George Floyd’s murder, was being held at a federal penitentiary after being transferred from a state prison. Expert has suggested that prison officials should have placed Chauvin in a low-security prison instead of a medium-security facility. The Federal Bureau of Prisons has faced staffing and management issues and has made multiple improvements in response to these challenges. Chauvin’s family is concerned about the prison’s ability to protect him in light of the attack and feels that the procedures that allowed the attack to occur should be reviewed and changed. Chauvin’s lawyer last year had anticipated the risk to Chauvin and had pushed for him to be kept out of the general population. The attack has raised more concerns among experts about the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ ability to keep incarcerated people, particularly the notorious, safe.
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