George Floyd's murderer Chauvin stabbed in prison

WASHINGTON/MINNEAPOLIS — A lawyer for Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer convicted of murdering George Floyd, says Chauvin's family has been kept in the dark by federal prison officials after he was stabbed in prison.

The lawyer, Gregory Erickson, criticized what he said was a lack of transparency by the Federal Bureau of Prisons a day after his client was stabbed on Friday by another inmate at the Federal Correctional Institution in Tucson, Arizona, a prison that has been plagued by security lapses and staffing shortages.

A person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press on Friday that Chauvin was seriously injured in the stabbing. The person, not authorized to publicly discuss the attack, spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

On Saturday Brian Evans, a spokesman for the Minnesota attorney general's office, said: "We have heard that he is expected to survive."

Erickson said Chauvin's family and his lawyers have hit a wall trying to obtain information about the attack from Bureau of Prisons officials. He said Chauvin's family has been forced to assume he is in stable condition, based only on news accounts, and has been contacting the prison repeatedly seeking updates but has been provided with no information.

The US Bureau of Prisons has confirmed an assault in the prison and said employees performed "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 safety reasons".

Chauvin was sent to Federal Correctional Institution Tucson from a maximum-security Minnesota state prison in August last year to serve 22 and a half years in prison for the brutal kneeling that caused the death of Floyd three years ago.

Video footage captured by bystanders showed Chauvin knelt on the 46-year-old black man's neck for nearly 10 minutes on May 25, 2020, while the man was pinned to the ground, gasping for air and saying "I can't breathe".

Medics arrived shortly later and loaded the motionless Floyd into an ambulance; he was later pronounced dead.

Chauvin is also serving a 21-year federal sentence for violating Floyd's civil rights.

Racism highlighted

Floyd's death unleashed a wave of protests worldwide against police brutality and racism, but others would endure a similar fate.

For example, Amir Locke, 22, was shot dead by Minneapolis police executing a "no-knock" search warrant as part of a homicide investigation on an early February morning last year. Body camera footage shows a gun in Locke's hand — which he legally possessed — as he was abruptly awakened and emerged from a couch.

Locke was not a suspect in the crime for which the warrant was issued and was not named at all in the document, but prosecutors declined to file charges against the officer who killed him.

Thousands of citizens gathered at the National Mall on Aug 26 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington, a monumental event in the US civil rights movement most remembered because of Martin Luther King Jr's "I Have a Dream" speech.

King's granddaughter Yolanda Renee King, 15, spoke to the crowd. She said that if she had a chance to say something to her grandfather today she would say, "I am sorry we still have to be here to rededicate ourselves to finishing your work and ultimately realizing your hidden dream.

"Sixty years ago Dr King urged us to struggle against the triple evils of racism, poverty and bigotry. Today racism is still with us."

The US Supreme Court declined to hear Chauvin's appeal of his state court murder conviction on Nov 20.

Agencies - Xinhua