Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer convicted of the murder of George Floyd, was relocated to a federal prison in Texas on Tuesday.
Chauvin, 47, is now being held at the Federal Correctional Institution in Big Spring, Texas, a low-security facility, according to the Bureau of Prisons who confirmed the transfer to the Associated Press (AP) on Tuesday.
Newsweek reached out to the Bureau of Prisons via email on Tuesday for comment.
The transfer comes after more than four years since Floyd, 46, died in May 2020 after Chauvin, who is white, pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for over nine minutes as Floyd, a Black man, repeatedly stated he couldn’t breathe. The killing, which was captured on video by a bystander, ignited global protests against racial injustice, police brutality and saw a reemergence of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Chauvin had previously been incarcerated at FCI Tucson in Arizona, where he was serving a concurrent 21-year federal sentence for violating Floyd’s civil rights and a state sentence of 22 and 1/2 years for second-degree murder.
The transfer also comes almost nine months after Chauvin survived a stabbing attack at FCI Tucson, a medium-security prison, in November 2023. He was stabbed 22 times in prison by a former gang leader and one-time FBI informant, John Turscak.
In this June 25, 2021, file image taken from video, former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin addresses the court at the Hennepin County Courthouse in Minneapolis. Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer convicted of the murder of George Floyd, was relocated to a federal prison in Texas on Tuesday.
Court TV/AP
Turscak, who is serving a 30-year sentence for his involvement with the Mexican Mafia prison gang, told investigators that he targeted Chauvin due to his notoriety for the killing of Floyd. Turscak has since been charged with attempted murder, and he reportedly expressed that he would have killed Chauvin if the correctional officers did not respond so quickly.
According to the AP, Chauvin’s lawyer at the time, Eric Nelson, had previously advocated for keeping him out of the general population and away from other inmates, anticipating he would be a target.
Meanwhile, another former Minneapolis officer involved in Floyd’s death, Thomas Lane, was released from a federal prison in Colorado on Tuesday after serving a three-year sentence for aiding and abetting manslaughter, the AP reported.
Lane, 41, had admitted to restraining Floyd in a way that he knew posed an unreasonable risk and contributed to Floyd’s death.
Chauvin and Lane were two of the four officers convicted in connection to Floyd’s death. The other officers, J. Alexander Kueng, who is Black and knelt on Floyd’s back, and Tou Thao, who is Hmong American and kept bystanders from intervening during the 9 1/2-minute restraint, are set to be released in 2025.
Chauvin, currently making a longshot bid to overturn his federal guilty plea claiming that new evidence shows he didn’t cause Floyd’s death, could remain in prison until 2038 if his appeal is unsuccessful.
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