Last week, we reported that ex-Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin had been stabbed multiple times while in a Tucson, Arizona, federal prison and that “life-saving” measures had to be employed just to keep him breathing.
Investigators have now revealed that he was stabbed a staggering 22 times by a former Mexican Mafia member who wanted to celebrate Black Lives Matter on Black Friday, which fell on November 24 this year.
The assailant, 52-year-old John Turscak, initially said he would’ve killed Chauvin with his improvised knife if corrections officers had not responded so quickly, according to prosecutors. (He backtracked on that claim in a subsequent interview and said he did not intend to murder him.) He added that he’d been thinking about attacking the ex-cop for about a month because he was a high-profile inmate and that he wanted to acknowledge his criminal gang and BLM:
Mr. Turscak said the date of stabbing, the day after Thanksgiving known as Black Friday, was “symbolic with the Black Lives Matter movement and the ‘Black Hand’ symbol associated with the Mexican Mafia criminal organization,” according to charging documents.
Interestingly, Turscak is serving a 30-year-sentence for crimes he committed while working as an FBI informant:
The rest of the tweet reads:
This is where it gets interesting. Turscak was in prison after being found guilty of racketeering and conspiring to kill a gang rival.
Before that, he worked as an FBI informant against the Mexican Mafia organization.
When being sentenced in 2001, Turscak admitted that he carried out crimes while working undercover as an informant to the FBI.
“I didn’t commit those crimes for kicks. I did them because I had to if I wanted to stay alive. I told that to the [FBI] agents and they just said, ‘Do what you have to do.’” (LA Times)
Wild.
Chauvin was convicted in 2021 of killing George Floyd during a police interaction by placing his knee on his neck for over nine minutes to keep him from getting back up. He received a 22-and-a-half-year sentence but has been pursuing an effort to overturn his federal guilty plea, claiming new evidence shows he didn’t cause Floyd’s death. However, in late November, the Supreme Court rejected his request for appeal, dealing that effort a major setback.
Floyd’s death caused months of rioting across the United States as BLM supporters protested police brutality.
Turscak, meanwhile, has been charged with attempted murder, assault with the intent to commit murder, assault with a dangerous weapon, and assault resulting in bodily injury for his attack on Chauvin.
Details of Chauvin’s current condition have not been made available:
His condition following the stabbing is still unknown. Chauvin’s attorney, Greg Erickson, told The Post on Wednesday his client’s family has not been able to speak to the ex-cop and don’t know about his current condition.
“They say he’s stable, but he also could be stable but unconscious, we just don’t know,” Erickson said. “That’s all we were told.
As I wrote last week when the initial news of the stabbing broke, there were some who celebrated Chauvin’s injuries, writing things like “Happy Shanksgiving” and posting memes depicting intense laughing. Regardless of your opinion of Derek Chauvin, the fact that he’s getting knifed 22 times in a federal prison is a disgrace. They must have known he’d have a target on his back; it’s bizarre that he wasn’t better protected.
It’s amazing he survived.
