Derek Chauvin, the police officer who killed George Floyd, stabbed to death in prison: US media
Derek Chauvin, the U.S. police officer whose killing of George Floyd sparked massive racial justice protests in 2020, was arrested Friday, The New York Times reported, citing unnamed sources. reported that he was stabbed in prison.
Chauvin, who is white, knelt on the dying black man’s neck for more than nine minutes on a Minneapolis street despite his pleas.
Floyd’s cry of “I can’t breathe” later became a rallying cry for protesters who took to the streets in the aftermath of the killing.
The US Federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed to AFP the assault, although it did not name the injured person.
“An incarcerated individual was assaulted” at Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Tucson in southwestern Arizona, the agency said in a statement.
“Responding personnel began life-saving measures for one inmate,” the statement said. “The incarcerated individual was transported to a local hospital for further treatment and testing.”
Chauvin was found guilty in 2021 of second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter and sentenced to 22 and a half years in prison.
The incident, captured on video, sparked mass protests and heightened scrutiny of racism and police enforcement in the United States and abroad.
A subsequent Department of Justice investigation into the Minneapolis Police Department, with its findings released in June 2023, found that the department’s officers routinely engaged in violent and racist conduct “including gratuitous deadly force.” He said he was suing.
The department “unlawfully discriminates against Black people and Native Americans in enforcing the law,” the report said.
The city of Minneapolis in the Midwestern state of Minnesota has also settled a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Floyd’s family, agreeing to pay $27 million to Floyd’s relatives.
Chuabin’s appeal of his second-degree murder conviction was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this month.
“At the end of the day, the whole trial, including the verdict, was a sham,” he said from prison in a recent documentary.
After the killing, colleagues sketched a portrait of Mr. Chauvin as a taciturn, stubborn workaholic who frequently patrolled the city’s unsafe neighborhoods.
My dedication to this work has earned me four medals throughout my career. But he also racked up 22 internal complaints and investigations, according to public records, all details of which have been scrutinized.
Of the many charges, only one filed in 2007 by a white woman who was violently dragged from her car in front of her screaming toddler for speeding resulted in a subsequent letter of reprimand.
Source: guardian.ng