Ex-officer Derek Chauvin, convicted in George Floyd’s killing, stabbed in prison

Rapidcreek@reddthat.com to News@lemmy.world – 741 points –
Ex-officer Derek Chauvin, convicted in George Floyd's killing, stabbed in prison, AP source says
apnews.com
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I don't feel bad for the guy, but I don't celebrate this sort of vigilante justice, either. Prisoners should be safe from other prisoners. Prison is not meant to be torture, and recidivism is a massive problem in the United States. Chauvin will have 20 years to contemplate his crimes, and treating him and every other prisoner will only reinforce their criminal proclivities.

American prisons ARE meant for torture. Don't get it twisted.

If they were for rehabilitation or treatment, then we would see to that, societally. But we don't.

This is a small piece of why our justice system is so absolutely fucked.

American prisons ARE meant for torture. Don’t get it twisted.

naw. not really. Prisons are meant to provide cheap domestic labor to the corporations running them. it's all profits.

Never forget, it’s actually legal to enslave prisoners according to the 13th Amendment.

yup. And there is a reason why laws are written to disproportionately affect certain groups- like how crack cocaine gets more jail time than powder, or marijuana convictions...

That's a part of it, yes. It's the slavery loophole in the 13th amendment.

Less of a loophole, more of an intended feature

Loopholes are things intentionally built into structures with the purpose of allowing something through. I find it weird so many people think loopholes aren't something intentional.

I'm having a lot of trouble finding a source that backs up this position. Everything I'm reading says that loopholes are typically oversights, not intentional inclusions.

That being said, the 13th amendment's allowance for prisoner slavery is not a loophole at all, it's an explicit allowance. Loopholes are not explicit, that's kinda the whole point of them. It's a bit like saying that the standard deduction on your taxes is a loophole. It's just an explicitly defined feature.

While that, in fact, does happen, when a large portion of loopholes benefit corporations are written by people employed, or otherwise invested in, those corporations you would have to be lying to yourself, or ignorant of the situation, to believe loopholes are generally unintended.

https://publicintegrity.org/politics/state-politics/copy-paste-legislate/you-elected-them-to-write-new-laws-theyre-letting-corporations-do-it-instead/

The above is one example of how this is done. Bills are written to model what the industry wants to get out of legislation. Then they use LLMs to construct legislation after being trained on those models. They then collude to push these bills to as many places as possible, greasing palms the whole way. Sometimes these are just out-right legislation for the purposes of enriching the industry, more often though they are bills written with carefully designed language to allow for specific technicalities, or for stipulations of compliance to be so vague as to be unenforceable, or to use a bunch of jargon and complex linguistics to make a law read one way to the laymen, but another to the professionals that will actually be interacting with these laws.

FWIW the vast majority of prisons in the US are not corporate run (>90%), but those majority government-run prisons still provide a lot of free/cheap manufacturing labor to private companies.

The government itself is to blame, not just private prisons.

i think you’re responding to a normative statement by making a descriptive statement.

for those unaware, here’s a quick explanation from wikipedia: a normative statement is “meant to talk about the world as it should be”, while a descriptive statement is “meant to describe the world as it is”.

If we could read we would be very upset.

the most niche grammar nazi

i wasn’t trying to talk about grammar at all, i was only trying to focus only on the meaning of what was said. but i probably could’ve made my point more clearly, so ill try to do that now.

here’s an “example”: one person says “things should be done this way” and the other person says “well things aren’t being done that way”. these two statements aren’t in opposition to each other. in fact, it’s perfectly possible both people agree with each other. maybe things aren’t being done a certain way, and they should be done differently.

the terms “normative” and “descriptive” might seem overly complicated to someone who hasn’t seen them before (they did the first time i saw them), but i thought i’d use them because they’re useful concepts to keep in mind. they’ve helped me communicate and resolve conflicts in my own life. i’ve been both people in the example above, and it’s helpful to be able to know when it’s happening.

The most based discourse nazi, singlehandedly preventing what could become a 30 comment deep argument where both sides fully misunderstand the other

Lemmy cannot read one word of your comment

Edit I'm fuckin stupid, leaving this comment up as a monument to my illiteracy

Making a comment like this about basic conversation and debate concepts is like driving and saying you can't read the speed limit signs. Like, maybe you should avoid actively participating altogether until you're actually able to

Huh? My point was many Lemmy users very commonly reply to someone's descriptive comment with a normative complaint, and freak out when it's clarified.

Wow I misread Lemmy as literally, I fuckered that one up bad lmao

i made the same mistake you did the first time i read their comment. your confusion helped me too!

Very glad this is currently the top comment. I was worried I’d run into a comment thread cheering for violence that simply shouldn’t have happened.

The idea of "not killing" and "I wish he was dead" can't seem live in most people's head. I think he's human waste, he should be dead, and I wouldn't have lamented his death. BUT!!! I don't want him to die and I don't want someone to kill him.

Yeah dude is a piece of shit, but it's a bit disheartening seeing people cheer on stuff like this.

but I don’t celebrate this sort of vigilante justice, either

We don't know what happened. He might have ran his mouth and found out he wasn't a protected class anymore.

That doesn't really change anything.

It does a little bit, I think.

Yes, our prisons should be safe for those who are confined within them. I agree with that, and that less people should be confined in the first place.

But there is a qualitative difference between "he was stabbed due to being a cop (or due to being THAT cop)" vs "He got into an altercation that resulted in him being stabbed, but which could have happened to anyone."

I think the kneejerk assumption is that he was targeted, which is worse IMO.

Not that I shed a single tear for the fate of Derek Chauvin, mind you.

How is "that could've happened to anyone" any better?

I agree with your broad sentiment that prisoners should feel safe in prison. However, this specific instance, I call (delayed) karma.

I don't think it's possible to keep humans from harming each other if they want to

That is literally the point of prisons.

In theory, yes, but that should be the point of education and social programs tbh. Even then, restorative justice models don't rely as heavily on jail/prison. Temporary and maybe permanent removal from a specific environment doesn't have to require fully sequestering perpetrators from society. Caught early enough, extreme examples of violent individuals can be rehabilitated through house arrest and other programs like anger management, therapy, etc. Saves taxpayer money, reduces recidivism, and victims report much higher satisfaction as they can actually face their perpetrator and be more involved in the process seeking accountability.

In practice, prisons prop up class and racial segregation, perpetuating capitalist agendas.

Doesn’t that prove his fuckin point? Even in something as locked down and controlled as fucking prison can’t stop humans if they truly want to harm others

You think prisons are locked down and controlled? Prisons are for-profit labor generators where slaves are treated like, well, slaves. Society accepts this because we act like they deserve subhuman treatment. We should not accept this.

to be fair, the united states doesnt care about the humans it pretends to 'rehabilitate'. we dont care about recidivism, because our system is for punishment not for rehab.

other countries do a better job at fixing their humans than we do. can we start there?

I was just making the joke initially, a contrasting oversimplification.

But just because they don't stop all violence, it doesn't mean they don't stop any violence. Prisons literally do keep murderers locked up instead of out harming others in the public. Are they flawless systems? Fuck no. There's all kinds of shit wrong with the systems. But they definitely beat the alternative of having no prisons.

And you should look into improvised weapons they confiscate from prisoners.

Human creativity gets maxed out when you literally have nothing to do but sit in a cell all day for years. Just because someone is a criminal doesn't mean they are completely stupid.

I have often wondered how many actual geniuses have been chewed up by the worlds prison systems. If only some of those people had gotten a fair chance in their life to have their skills developed in a healthy environment..... It's depressing to think about, actually.

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Maybe Chauvin stabbed himself in a state of "excited delirium."

The important thing is, the inmate investigated himself and decided that he did nothing wrong.

He was probably making some “furtive movements” just before the incident.

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I would have said that there's no humor to be had here, but I would have been wrong. Twice in one comment.

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I'm sorely tempted to start circulating claims about what Chauvin had in his system at the time.

EDIT - Also, this shit:

Chauvin’s stabbing comes as the federal Bureau of Prisons has faced increased scrutiny in recent years following wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein’s jail suicide in 2019. It’s another example of the agency’s inability to keep even its highest profile prisoners safe after Nassar’s stabbing and “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski’s suicide at a federal medical center in June.

Oh it's a problem all of a sudden. Can't imagine why.

I’m sorely tempted to start circulating claims about what Chauvin had in his system at the time.

Are we certain the wound was caused by a stabbing and not "Incarceration Delirium"? Or maybe it's a holy miracle stigmata!

Murderer. The proper way to refer to him, mainstream news, is "the murderer Derek Chauvin". He was convicted of murdering George Floyd.

I don't know, I like reminding everyone that he was a police officer when this sort of thing comes up.

How about " Convicted Murderer and disgraced police officer Derek Chauvin", that should keep most of us happy.

Yep he is a murdering murderer who committed murderous murder against a murderless murderee who was murdered by said murder.

Fyi did you know murderee was a word? I just learned this.

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I feel this whole case is everything wrong with the justice system (aside from him actually facing consequences). A corrupt cop with a history of violence gets attacked in an overpopulated and understaffed prison where folks are punished instead of rehabilitated.

Right, none of these things should have happened at all. It's just a negative feedback loop of incompetence and corruption.

This person spent a career throwing people into this exact system. Eagerly, if my perception of his past behavior after watching his entire trial is at all representative.

Yeah I think people are forgetting this was a cop who actively perpetuated this system. And not even in a "just following orders" sense, he seemed to delight in it.

Prisons sure cost a lot of money to tax payers. Are you sure they're understaffed or is the staff just apathetic

Yes to both. Keep in mind "understaffed" means lots of things to lots of people.

That prisons aren't basically forced schools and therapy is an atrocity, to me, as an example. It changes the entire concept of what prison is about in ways I find unacceptable

I know a prison guard, not very well but yes we have talked a few times. He was telling me how there is basically no system in place for therapy for them. They see something brutal and they are expected to just come into work the next day which causes PTSD to run rampant.

Messed up.

I’d rather they were punished and rehabilitated. Both are necessary.

I'm of the opinion that, while the premise is agreeable it simply isn't possible to rehabilitate police officers.

If someone can be rehabilitated, I believe that implies that they can be unhabilitated. It kinda implies that people aren't inherently bad / don't do bad things without something causing them to. If your dog shits inside because you forgot to take it out, do you punish it? If so, congratulations on being consistent, -ly an asshole.

He should have just complied.

While it's easy to not sympathize with a person like that, no inmates should be getting stabbed in prison. It's still wrong. And still a symptom of the bad justice system in the US.

Guy committed slow murder and set my country on fire. I don't even know how we would be able to quantify the damage he did. There were BLM protests in countries on different continents. There is now less trust of the police globally, there are were countless riots and deaths and assaults and fires, this mistrust set off cycles of violence and has set race relations back decades. We live in the world now that we rightfully can't trust our own LEOs and they have hunkered down.

There are zero winners here. We all benefit from a police system that works and has earned the public trust. So yes I will shed zero tears for this man. Because fuck his racist asshole

We had BLM protests here in Britain too, but George Floyd isn't the main reason we've grown to distrust cops.

Two years ago, a serving Metropolitan police officer 'arrested' a young woman who was walking home from her friend's house on the basis of her breaching COVID lockdown guidelines. He then raped and murdered her. The Metropolitan Police then proceeded to brutally crack down upon a peaceful vigil held to mourn her.

Wayne Couzens is thankfully serving life without parole for his sickening crime, and the ladies who were manhandled, tackled down and detained during the vigil have been compensated by the courts. This whole scandal because the catalyst that led to Cressida Dick resigning as the Met Police Commissioner (long overdue), and investigations that found institutionalized racism and misogyny in the Met.

Another example is the 'Kill the Bill' protests, which were protests held against the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill which was going through Parliament, which essentially wanted to give the police greater powers to suppress peaceful protests and dish out ten year prison sentences for causing a public nuisance. This came off the back of environmental groups blocking roads to protest the government's inaction on climate change.

Protests to oppose the bill led to a riot in Bristol where a police station was vandalized, and a later protest which was cracked down upon with violence. I remember seeing a clip on Twitter of a police officer bashing a woman in the face with his riot shield.

Police shouldn't kill unarmed people, but here we are.

Yeah, this one guy here got a nice twist of karma. Many others though just get stabbed and raped anyway.

Maybe we should fix both problems, and having a cop get shanked in the shower or whatever could provide some impetus toward that.

How exactly? Violence always breeds more violence.

Because the little cowards don't like violence against themselves, silly.

And cops who are supposed to protect people shouldn't be executing people, but here we are. He himself contributed to the problem he's facing.

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The only thing that stops a bad guy with a sharpened melted toothbrush, is a good guy with a sharpened melted toothbrush.

I’m just glad he survived. Death is an escape he doesn’t deserve yet. He’s got many more years of “fun” to look forward to.

In November 2022, an inmate at the facility’s low-security prison camp pulled out a gun and attempted to shoot a visitor in the head. The weapon, which the inmate shouldn’t have had ....

Well, that seems a bit obvious.

Just to take a jab at the US from a European perspective...

You don't have the right to bear arms in prison? I thought guns were sacred in the US!?

Careful, I'm sure there's some asswipe from where I grew up who wants to throw a bunch of guns in and walk away to let them "sort it out" or some shit. If you go redneck enough reality begins to satirize satire.

We're probably like 3 or 4 main timeline events away from this becoming a legitimate state policy - and it's not much longer before it is made into a reality TV show for public entertainment.

Yeah, nothing in the second amendment says they shouldn't have guns.

Nothing in the second amendment says who should have guns at all unless you interpret it as saying only a militia should have them. That's a big part of the problem.

I hope he was stabbed somewhere where he found out what it was like to not be able to breathe.

Well now he has felt the fear of death from the violence of another person too.

Ohh so this is why murderers should go to maximum security instead of medium.

Particularly vicious and unrepentant murderers who killed a man in broad daylight as his gang cheered.

Probably shouldnt have murdered Floyd over 20 bucks.

Wow, I'm soooo surprised an ex-officer got stabbed in prison. Who could've seen this coming?

It's kinda freeing to be done with the disney channel ass idea that you should never celebrate others' misfortune. It lets headlines like this be heartwarming instead of disappointing

That people are being stabbed in prison is an indictment on the barbarity of our prison system, so this should still piss you off.

I think for many people it’s probably the “just desserts” factor of our barbaric system hurting somebody who was a very barbaric cog in that very system.

While I certainly understand the concept of schadenfreude, I don't think it should be built into our systems, and that doing so is an unjust, unethical failure on our ability to govern ourselves.

We know this system does more harm than good but enable it because yeah, it does feel great when bad things happen to shitty people.

I mean they basically just told you that they're a sociopath, so I don't think they care.

The barbarity of the US prison system is a feature, not a bug. Americans really seem to love exorbitant punishments, awfully similar to medieval Europe. Perhaps in a few centuries your culture will reach modern human rights standards.

Not when it's some asshat that killed a man for a bounced check. He pleaded for his life and called out for his mother. Fuck Derek. That dude can be stabbed 1 million times to teach other officers they aren't above the laws they choose to preserve. He put his own law on full display. He reaped what he sewed.

Yea but do you realize how half those people got sent to prison in the first place? Besides petty non violent crimes those in that group I don't count unless they get violent in prison as a result of prison itself. I mean I agree should havengot stabbed but there's a reason most are in prison.

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Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

Sadly, he’s going to be okay.

No no, that’s a good thing. You don’t want him having an easy way out. Fucker needs to serve his full sentence, then die.

Why is he in Arizona?

With federal prison they send them to whichever has the least overcrowding/most staff on hand. They also take into account a bunch of other things, like how much of a risk the prisoner is for committing violence, mental or physical health requirements, etc, and send them to whichever one is best equipped to deal with the specific needs.

Nobody should celebrate this. He's got in sentence, there's no need to rub it in and make him suffer more, it doesn't help anyone. You can argue that he got off easy and should be in jail for longer, but wishing for his death in prison is needlessly cruel and short-sighted.

Yes there is. Make an example. Make these cops so terrified of prison they clean up their acts or retire from the force.

My thoughts and prayers go to the person who had to clean up the mess; Otherwise, this is just a taste of what he deserves.

It must be hellish to be so notorious, under constant threat, probably spening the rest of your life that way. No rehabilitation, no hope. An abnormally high suicide rate amongst the inmates of this type wouldn't be a surprise.

Wait I thought Christmas was a month away but we're already getting presents?

Total cumskin death