Chauvin family outraged by lack of updates after stabbing

After former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was stabbed to death in an Arizona prison on Friday, his lawyer and family denounced the “outrageous” lack of information.

Chauvin, who was convicted in the death of George Floyd in 2020, was critically injured in the stabbing, and Minnesota Attorney General’s Office spokesman Brian Evans said: “We have heard that he is expected may he survive.”

But the lack of details for the lawyer and the family has them outraged.

“As an outsider, I find this lack of communication with their lawyers and family members completely outrageous,” Gregory M. Erickson said in a statement to The Associated Press. “It appears to be indicative of a poorly managed facility and indicates how Derek’s assault was allowed to occur.”

The Federal Correctional Institution in Tucson, Arizona, has been plagued by insecurity and understaffing.

Lawyer and family call out Bureau of Prisons for not responding to requests for information.

Erickson’s comments highlight concerns raised for years that federal prison officials provide little or no information to loved ones of incarcerated people who are seriously injured or ill in federal custody. The AP previously reported that the Bureau of Prisons ignored its internal guidelines and failed to notify the families of inmates who were seriously ill with COVID-19 as the virus swept through U.S. federal prisons.

The issue surrounding family notification has also prompted federal legislation introduced last year in the Senate that would require the Justice Department to establish guidelines for the Federal Bureau of Prisons and state correctional systems to notify families of people incarcerated if their loved one has a serious illness. , a life-threatening injury or if they die behind bars.

“How family members responsible for Derek’s decisions about his personal medical care and his emergency contact were not informed after his stabbing further indicates the institution’s poor procedures and lack of institutional oversight.” , Erickson said.

A Bureau of Prisons spokesman did not immediately respond to the AP’s request for comment Saturday evening.

The Bureau of Prisons has only confirmed one assault at the Arizona facility and said employees conducted “lifesaving measures” before the inmate was taken to a hospital for further treatment and evaluation. The Bureau of Prisons did not name the victim or provide a medical status “for privacy and security reasons.”

Prosecutors who successfully pursued a second-degree murder conviction against Chauvin in a 2021 jury trial expressed dismay that he became the target of violence while in federal custody.

Terrence Floyd, George Floyd’s brother, was far less worried.

“I’m not going to put my energy into anything that happens inside those four walls, because my energy went into putting it in those four walls,” Terrence Floyd told the AP. “Whatever happens in these four walls, I really have no sense of it.”

Chauvin’s stabbing is the second high-profile attack on a federal prisoner in the past five months. In July, disgraced sports doctor Larry Nassar was stabbed by a fellow inmate at a federal penitentiary in Florida.

Chauvin, 47, was sent to FCI Tucson from a maximum-security Minnesota state prison in August 2022 to concurrently serve a 21-year federal sentence for violating George Floyd’s civil rights and a state sentence 22 and a half years for second degree murder.

Another of Chauvin’s lawyers, Eric Nelson, had advocated to keep him out of the general population and away from other inmates, anticipating that he would be a target. In Minnesota, Chauvin was held primarily in solitary confinement “largely for his own protection,” Nelson wrote in court documents last year.

Last week, the US Supreme Court rejected Chauvin’s appeal against his murder conviction. Separately, Chauvin is making a long-term bid to overturn his federal guilty plea, claiming new evidence shows he did not cause George Floyd’s death.

George Floyd, who was black, was killed on May 25, 2020, after Chauvin, who is white, pressed his knee into his neck for 9 1/2 minutes on the street outside a store where George Floyd was suspected of trying pass a fake $20 bill. .

Bystander video captured her faint screams of “I can’t breathe.” His death sparked protests around the world, some of which turned violent, and forced a national reckoning with police brutality and racism.

Three other former officers who were at the scene received lesser state and federal sentences for their roles in the death of George Floyd.

Chauvin’s stabbing comes as the federal Bureau of Prisons has faced increasing scrutiny in recent years following the prison suicide of wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein in 2019. It’s another example of the agency’s ineptitude to keep even its most high-profile prisoners safe after the stabbings of Nassar and “Unabomber” Ted. Kaczynski’s suicide at a federal medical center in June.

At the Tucson federal prison in November 2022, an inmate at the facility’s low-security prison camp pulled out a gun and attempted to shoot a visitor in the head. The gun, which the inmate should not have had, misfired and no one was injured.

An ongoing AP investigation has uncovered deep, previously unreported flaws in the Bureau of Prisons, the Justice Department’s largest law enforcement agency with more than 30,000 employees, 158,000 inmates and an annual budget of about 8 billion dollars.

AP reports have revealed rampant sexual abuse and other criminal behavior by staff, scores of escapes, chronic violence, deaths and severe staff shortages that have hampered emergency responses, including inmate assaults and suicides

Bureau of Prisons Director Colette Peters was brought in last year to reform the crisis-hit agency. He promised to change archaic hiring practices and bring new transparency, while stressing that the agency’s mission is to “make good neighbors, not good prisoners.”

AP information was used throughout this report.