According to police, the guy who stabbed ex-Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin in prison on Black Friday did so on purpose as a symbolic connection to the Black Lives Matter movement.
According to authorities, former Mexican Mafia member John Turscak, 52, stabbed Chauvin 22 times inside a Tucson federal jail and indicated he would have killed him if corrections officers had not responded so swiftly.
He is now charged with attempted murder, assault with intent to commit murder, assault with a dangerous weapon, and assault causing bodily harm.
Turscak, who is serving a 30-year term for crimes committed as an FBI informant, said he considered stabbing the ex-cop convicted of killing black man George Floyd by kneeling on his neck during his arrest for months before the deed.
Turscak used an “improvised knife” to attack Chauvin with the “intent to do bodily harm” and “commit murder,” according to the criminal complaint obtained by The Post.
Police say he told them on November 26 that he chose Black Friday as the day of the attack because it was “symbolic with the Black Lives Matter movement and the ‘Black Hand’ symbol associated with the Mexican Mafia criminal organization.”
VISIT OUR YOUTUBE CHANNELProsecutors claim Derek Chauvin was stabbed 22 times. Courts in Minnesota.
On Nov. 24, at about 12:30 p.m., the former police officer was attacked inside the facility’s law library. Turscak was subdued with pepper spray by officers.
Chauvin, who is serving a 22-year sentence for Floyd’s death, was transferred to a hospital for “emergency medical treatment,” after employees had to conduct “life-saving measures” on him.
Turscak waived his Miranda Rights during his FBI interrogation, during which he denied planning to murder Chauvin.
Chauvin is serving a 21-year federal term in a regular housing unit with a central common room at the federal prison in Tucson, Arizona. The Federal Bureau of Prisons (FBP)
The criminal’s counsel was not listed, even though he had previously represented himself.
He was later transferred to a nearby federal facility, where he remains.
Tursak was convicted in 1997 for crimes committed as an FBI informant against the Mexican Mafia. According to a 2001 Los Angeles Times investigation, his work culminated in the indictment of 40 alleged mafia members and allies.
Derek Chauvin was stabbed by a fellow inmate at the Federal Correctional Institution Tucson. Google Maps.
During his stint as an informant, he did, however, distribute drugs, extort money, and allow assault. According to The New York Times, he was fired as an informant and charged with racketeering and conspiracy to murder a rival gang member.
Tursak claimed at the time that he alerted the FBI about his tactics and was told, “Do what you have to do.”
“I didn’t commit those crimes for kicks. I did them because I had to if I wanted to stay alive,” he explained at the time.
Chauvin was found guilty of the murder of George Floyd. AP
Chauvin, on the other hand, was thrust into the spotlight in May 2020 after being photographed kneeling on Floyd’s neck for nine and a half minutes, resulting in his death.
In July 2022, he was sentenced to nearly two decades in federal prison for robbing Floyd of his rights.
His condition after the incident remains unknown. Greg Erickson, Chauvin’s attorney, told The Washington Post on Wednesday that his client’s family has not been allowed to communicate with the ex-cop and is unaware of his present state.
“They say he’s stable, but he also could be stable but unconscious; we just don’t know,” he said. “That’s all we were told.”
