Inmate who stabbed Derek Chauvin 22 occasions charged

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An incarcerated former gang member and one-time FBI informant was charged Friday with tried homicide within the stabbing of ex-Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin at a federal jail in Arizona.

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John Turscak stabbed Chauvin 22 occasions on the Federal Correctional Establishment in Tucson and mentioned he would have killed Chauvin had correctional officers not responded so shortly, federal prosecutors mentioned.

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Turscak, serving a 30-year sentence for crimes dedicated whereas a member of the Mexican Mafia gang, instructed investigators he thought of attacking Chauvin for a few month as a result of the previous officer, convicted of murdering George Floyd, is a high-profile inmate, prosecutors mentioned. Turscak later denied eager to kill Chauvin, prosecutors mentioned.

Turscak is accused of attacking Chauvin with an improvised knife within the jail’s regulation library round 12:30 p.m. on Nov. 24, the day after Thanksgiving. The Bureau of Prisons mentioned workers stopped the assault and carried out “life-saving measures.” Chauvin was taken to a hospital for therapy.

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Turscak instructed FBI brokers interviewing him after the assault that he attacked Chauvin on Black Friday as a symbolic connection to the Black Lives Matter motion, which garnered widespread assist within the wake of Floyd’s dying, and the “Black Hand” image related to the Mexican Mafia, prosecutors mentioned.

Turscak, 52, can be charged with assault with intent to commit homicide, assault with a harmful weapon and assault leading to critical bodily harm. The tried homicide and assault with intent to commit homicide costs are every punishable by as much as 20 years in jail. He’s scheduled to finish his present sentence in 2026.

A lawyer for Turscak was not listed in court docket data. Turscak has represented himself from jail in quite a few court docket issues. After the stabbing, he was moved to an adjoining federal penitentiary in Tucson, the place he remained in custody on Friday, inmate data present.

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Messages searching for remark have been left with Chauvin’s legal professionals.

Chauvin, 47, was despatched to FCI Tucson from a maximum-security Minnesota state jail in August 2022 to concurrently serve a 21-year federal sentence for violating Floyd’s civil rights and a 22 1/2-year state sentence for second-degree homicide.

Chauvin’s lawyer on the time, Eric Nelson, had advocated for maintaining him out of common inhabitants and away from different inmates, anticipating he could be a goal. In Minnesota, Chauvin was primarily saved in solitary confinement “largely for his personal safety,” Nelson wrote in court docket papers final yr.

Floyd, who was Black, died on Could 25, 2020, after Chauvin, who’s white, pressed a knee on his neck for 9 1/2 minutes on the road exterior a comfort retailer the place Floyd was suspected of making an attempt to go a counterfeit $20 invoice.

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Bystander video captured Floyd’s fading cries of “I can’t breathe.” His dying touched off protests worldwide, a few of which turned violent, and compelled a nationwide reckoning with police brutality and racism.

Turscak led a faction of the Mexican Mafia within the Los Angeles space within the late Nineteen Nineties, going by the nickname “Stranger,” in keeping with court docket data. He turned an FBI informant in 1997, offering details about the gang and recordings of conversations he had with different Mexican Mafia members and associates.

The investigation led to greater than 40 indictments. However about halfway by means of, the FBI dropped Turscak as an informant as a result of he was nonetheless dealing medicine, extorting cash and authorizing assaults. In accordance with court docket papers, Turscak plotted assaults on rival gang members and was accused of trying to kill a pacesetter of a rival Mexican Mafia faction whereas additionally being focused himself.

Turscak pleaded responsible in 2001 to racketeering and conspiring to kill a gang rival. He mentioned he thought his cooperation with the FBI would have earned a lighter sentence.

“I didn’t commit these crimes for kicks,” Turscak mentioned, in keeping with information reviews about his sentencing. “I did them as a result of I needed to if I wished to remain alive. I instructed that to the FBI brokers they usually simply mentioned, ‘Do what you must do.”‘

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