Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, convicted of murdering George Floyd in 2020, survived an attack in which he was stabbed 22 times, it was revealed Friday. The man accused of stabbing him is being charged with attempted murder, the most serious of four counts lodged against him.
John Turscak, 52, also stands accused of assault to commit murder, assault with a dangerous weapon, and assault resulting in serious bodily injury. He allegedly attacked Chauvin, 47, on Nov. 24 in the law library at the Federal Corrections Institute in Tucson, Arizona. Guards subdued Turscak, who was wielding what they called an “improvised knife,” by using pepper spray.
FBI agents say two days after the attack, Turscak confessed to planning the attack for a month. They say Turscak initially told them he intended to kill Chauvin because he was a high-profile target, then recanted. But he did tell them that he chose the day after Thanksgiving because it coincided with Black Friday and was “symbolic with the Black Lives Matter movement and the ‘Black Hand’ symbol associated with the Mexican Mafia criminal organization,” according to court documents.
Turscak is serving a 30-year sentence for crimes while working as a federal informant.
Court documents further state that Turscak confessed to murdering a man in 1990 while he was in Folsom Prison and authorized the murder of another man in 1998.
Chauvin, who is White, is concurrently serving a 21-year federal sentence for violating the civil rights of Floyd, who was Black, and a 22½-year state sentence for second-degree murder after pressing his knee against Floyd’s neck for 9½ minutes outside a convenience store on May 25, 2020. Floyd was being detained at the time on suspicion of passing a counterfeit $20 bill. His death set off nationwide protests against racism in policing.
