Derek Chauvin, officer convicted of murdering George Floyd, expected to survive prison stabbing

News@lemmy.world – 221 points – 7 months ago

Derek Chauvin, officer convicted of murdering George Floyd, expected to survive prison stabbing

Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer convicted of George Floyd’s murder, is expected to survive after he was stabbed in prison, the Minnesota Attorney General's Office said Saturday.

Chauvin was hospitalized Friday following an assault at the medium-security Federal Correctional Institution at Tucson. A law enforcement source with knowledge of the incident said Chauvin was seriously injured in the assault.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons said the incident took place at about 12:30 p.m. and "responding employees initiated life-saving measures for one incarcerated individual."

I know this guy deserves to be punished to the fullest extent of the law for the horrible murder of George Floyd... But nobody deserves to be shanked in prison.

Prison is for reform and rehabilitation and correction.

The U.S. prison system is an abomination of human rights.

Strip their badge and their gun, strip their dignity, strip their title, strip their liberties, but don't through them defenseless into certain torture.

I will be down voted for this but my heart goes out to this man and his family.

No one deserves to get shanked. Someone should just kneel on his neck until he shows some remorse

All you need to know about US prisons comes down to just 4 little words. Don’t drop the soap. I say this every single time US prisons are brought up. Where else is the proper response essentially don’t get raped? It’s used as a joke here in the US. This is the advice that friends and family give to people they care about that are going into prison.

We should do better.

I fully agree. The people cheering this on don't feel fundamentally different from people who said "Floyd deserved what he got because he was a criminal". Yes, Chauvin committed an incomparably more heinous act, but he got a fair sentence according to the justice system. Vigilantes adding more punishment doesn't make the world a better place, at least in this case.

That said, fuck Chauvin.

People who glorify prison vigilantism are monsters. "Raped to death" is not a punishment for a crime, yet you always hear people excitedly saying, "Oh he won't do well in prison." It's disgusting.

I am against extra judicial punishment, unlike Derek Chauvin.

I completely agree with everything you said except that I don't feel the least bit bad for him.

It shouldn't have happened. Things like this shouldn't happen.

Do I feel even slightly bad for this guy that he's laying in a hospital bed with stab wounds? Nah. At least he got to live, unlike his victim.

I do feel bad for his family, but only because they somehow hitched their wagon to this PoS and probably love him - so I'm sure this is difficult for them.

This murderer deserves every bad thing that happens to him

"I am sad to hear that Derek Chauvin was the target of violence," he said. "He was duly convicted of his crimes and, like any incarcerated individual, he should be able to serve his sentence without fear of retaliation or violence."

Kind of like how regular civilians should be able to live "without fear of retaliation or violence" from the police.

He survived this attack, but I highly doubt he survives prison. He will be killed for the clout bounty on his head, or he will take his own life from the psychological torture of solitary confinement. This is the sad reality of prison in the United States.

Good, he should suffer in prison until the end of his term.

We'll see what happens. They may patch him up just to get fukken stabbed one more time. Lmao

All the people taking this opportunity to say "no one should get stabbed in prison" and criticizing anyone who doesn't, maybe talk about prison reform at literally any other time? Seriously, it would be nice if this many people were always pointing out the flaws in our prisons. But it seems like there is always mystically more people criticizing the state of our prisons whenever a terrible person gets fucked with.

I say, until we do fix our prisons, people like this getting fucked up don't deserve our concern, it is wasted sympathy for someone who would not return it. Worry about the people getting stabbed in prison that don't get talked about in the news.

It's because in every other circumstance, there aren't people saying "good" or that's how it should be. The "No one should get stabbed in prison" is almost exclusively in response to someone celebrating it happening to a particularly shitty person.

Look, if this guy died painfully, I wouldn't feel bad for him, but I would still be upset that our prison systems allow for something like that. If a fire department constantly failed to respond to fires, and it turned out one house that burned down and killed the occupant ended up with evidence of some horrible child molester, I wouldn't shed a tear for the pedo but I would still be upset at how poorly the fire department is run. Same idea here.

There’s a pretty logical reason it happens like this. This site is a link aggregator. Prison violence only makes news when high profile people are stabbed, and largely, the high profile people being stabbed are bad people. Them being high profile leads to more views and comments, and that is when you see people asking for prison reform.

“Man stabbed in prison” would get no views so news outlets do not write about it. “Let’s reform prisons” is a reasonably popular (among this part of the internet) stance and doesn’t generate much discussion, so there are no prison reform specific forums. Thus this is the only time they get to mention it.

Also, if prisons weren’t as bad as they are now and Chauvin was the only guy this happens to, you’d probably not see any complaining about this because he really does kind of deserve it. It’s that he’s not an outlier and mentioning prison reform generally takes precedence over piling in here to celebrate the guy getting stabbed.

I understand why it happens I just find it disappointing. Derails the conversation from where it should be and reduces the efficacy of the arguments for prison reform to use them in the context of this guy.

Some would say that bringing it up in times like this strengthens the argument because even the vilest shouldn’t be extrajudicially punished in prison. And where should the conversation be? At just celebrating that he got stabbed?

Like, I do agree to an extent and I do wish prisons were reformed to a point where we could celebrate Chauvin getting shanked. But until then, prison violence will always lead to calls for better cause it really is the only time regular people can talk about it.

Honestly I'm too tired rn to give this conversation the fair amount of attention and I considered just not responding but

IMO the conversation about him should be the context of what can be done to change the systems in place to prevent more people like him from being put in positions of power in the first place. I can't exactly hand wave and make that happen, but honestly both takes on this seem like distractions from the point to me. "No one deserves this" and "haha fuck him" are both unproductive conversation towards preventing the kind of crimes he commited, but at least "haha fuck him" is cathartic and brief.

If you respond to me and I don't respond back I'm not trying to be rude I'm just tired

I also agree there but it’s not really on topic for him getting stabbed. Your frustration is more topical when it happens and the discussion is more about whether he’ll be punished than about preventing people like him from gaining power to begin with. There’re good reasons for those responses too, given the history of police brutality being covered up and that public pressure is genuinely important for ensuring justice, but still.

You make a good point in that reforming positions of power is comparatively rarely spoken about. It’s hard to tell when that’s topical enough for people to comment about it en masse. It becomes a large point when brutality happens, but society isn’t yet sure enough that the brutality will be punished for police reform to truly dominate discussion. At the least though, that discussion does happen, whereas that of prison reform is less common.

Anyway no need to respond cause I think we agree on the important bits, just maybe not on whether talking about prison reform specifically here is necessary. I still believe it is, since prison reform is more on topic than power reform and if it doesn’t happen here it will never happen, but I also strongly agree that power reform is an important conversation to have.

maybe talk about prison reform at literally any other time?

This sound unfair.

I think people who oppose this would do it when anyone gets stabbed. I don't want to live in the shitty world created by this cop and many like him where inmates suffer a lot of inmate violence.

Just because this isn't an agreeable person doesn't mean those who oppose violence in prison are somehow criticising it more now as if it was motivated by who this person is... /: it just means this story is now on the news. I wouldn't read too deep into it.

No violence for anyone will include those we don't like, and I think that's a powerful and fair point to make.

You are right, I was exaggerating and it was unfair to the people that do actively work towards prison reform. Not the best way to phrase it.

But I still see a difference in the number of people particularly interested in prison reform everytime some asshole like this is making prison violence newsworthy. Even if everyone's intentions are pure, I find it somewhat misguided.

Good.

But not cuz I like the guy.

Edit: It's because death would spare him from the endless torment of living in a cell and being bored 24/7 and eating terrible food. I want to make sure he lives an entire life of that.

Yeah I really don't understand how many Americans are okay with people being murdered in prison.

Their sentence is prison, not death.

I think a lot of people want revenge over justice while at the same time mistrusting their justice system to work correctly...

I think a lot of people want revenge over justice while at the same time mistrusting their justice system to work correctly...

That's pretty much it, with the caveat that I don't think revenge is so much the goal as it is actual justice. Our 'justice system' is a bad joke, so counting on it to appropriately handle evil people is naive.

We're pretty much guaranteed that he won't take a path of correction, because perfect-world-ideals aside, the corrections system isn't designed to do that.

We're left with the only realistic outcomes all being undesirable, but the least undesirable among them is another inmate just killing him before he's released, hence the folks disappointed that the stabbing wasn't fatal.

It's the same kinda deal as when evil people in power like Mitch McConnell show signs that he might be stroking out, but then lives on to sow more evil: and then comment sections everywhere are full of people disappointed that he didn't die - not because they want him dead, but because they don't want evil people to be in power, but with the current state of our broken system, about the only realistic path for that to actually happen is something like a fatal medical episode or car wreck etc.

There's a prevailing (but diminishing) notion that nobody deserves to die... but preservation of an evil life, especially ones in a position of power/influence, serves only to impair and/or destroy a great deal more lives. So, unconditional preservation of any life may feel like a moral high ground, but that illusion dissolves pretty quick when you start to consider the consequences for doing so.

Ideally that'd all be moot, since we'd have a functional way to remove those people from power and help them to actually become a positive member of society, but our reality is so far from that, that were left with hoping for things like a targeted stabbing in prison, or a stroke on stage, etc.

Nah it's just cuz we have a "sides" mentality in our heads: When bad things happen to bad people, It's good.

They forget or somehow don't care that death would be a relief for prisoners. It would spare them from the endless torment and boredom and terrible food.

I'm pretty sure peers from his department and the prison system hate him too. If not for Chauvin murdering Floyd in such a reckless manner, there couldn't be that much awareness about how the system is fucked. And cops, prison guards liked it that way.

I don't wish him that, but I suspect he won't leave it alive. If both prisoners and guards despise him, that'd be a hell of a task.

If not for Chauvin murdering Floyd in such a reckless manner, there couldn’t be that much awareness about how the system is fucked. And cops, prison guards liked it that way.

Yep. Chauvin is going to help bring about police reform and prison reform. Nothing gets action from the justice system like a white cop having something bad happen to him.

Until they figure out how to give good treatment in direct relation to their whiteness again.

Chewing the Chauvin, a series about making right from all wrongs we are having.

Good, wouldn't wanna end it too quickly.

I remember a line from Better Call Saul, from Mike, about how a cop's worst fear is prison. Doesn't matter if they get one year, five years, or a life sentence - all of it turns out as a death sentence. Hence why corrupt practices will drill in - either someone is a paragon of policework, or they cover up every tiny infraction for chance of ending up there.

Makes me wonder if it's worth doing something in the vein of military prisons, where we have special prisons for police officers. There's certainly enough to make it into a business...(and perhaps lead cops to question why prison is a business for us)