Derek Chauvin expected to survive injuries after he was stabbed by another inmate at Tucson prison where he's being held over George Floyd's murder

Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is expected to survive after he was stabbed by another inmate and seriously injured at the Arizona prison where he is serving a 22-year sentence for murdering George Floyd.

Chauvin, 47, was attacked with a knife on Friday at the Federal Correctional Institution in Tucson - a medium-security prison that has been plagued by security lapses and staffing shortages.

'We have heard that he is expected to survive,' Brian Evans, spokesman for the Minnesota attorney general's office said. 

The Bureau of Prisons confirmed that an incarcerated person was assaulted at FCI Tucson at around 12:30pm local time Friday. In a statement, the agency said responding employees contained the incident and performed 'life-saving measures' before the inmate, who it did not name, was taken to a hospital for further treatment and evaluation.

An official said his injuries were not life-threatening and an attorney for him said on Saturday that his legal team is still trying to get details about the incident.

Chauvin was sent to FCI Tucson from a maximum-security Minnesota state prison in August 2022 to simultaneously serve a 21-year federal sentence for violating Floyd's civil rights and a 22-and-a-half-year state sentence for second-degree murder.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison issued a statement to say he was 'sad' to hear Chauvin was attacked. 

'I am sad to hear that Derek Chauvin was the target of violence. 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,' he said in a statement.  

Terrence Floyd, George Floyd's brother, said on Saturday that he wouldn't wish what happened to Chauvin on anyone, and that he felt numb when he initially learned of the news.

'I'm not gonna give my energy towards anything that happens within those four walls — because my energy went towards getting him in those four walls,' he said. 

'Whatever happens in those four walls, I don't really have any feelings about it.'

Chauvin's lawyer, Eric Nelson, had advocated for keeping him out of general population and away from other inmates, anticipating he'd be a target. 

In Minnesota, Chauvin was mainly kept in solitary confinement 'largely for his own protection,' Nelson wrote in court papers last year.

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Chauvin's appeal of his murder conviction. 

Separately, Chauvin is making a long-shot bid to overturn his federal guilty plea, claiming new evidence shows he didn't cause Floyd's death.

The Bureau of Prisons said no employees at the Tucson facility were injured in the attack and that the FBI was notified. 

Visiting at the facility, which has about 380 inmates, has been suspended.

Chauvin's stabbing is the second high-profile attack on a federal prisoner in the last five months. 

In July, disgraced sports doctor Larry Nassar was stabbed by a fellow inmate at a federal penitentiary in Florida.

It is also the second major incident at the Tucson federal prison in a little over a year. 

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, misfired and no one was hurt.

Floyd, who was black, died on May 25, 2020, after Chauvin, who is white, pressed a knee on his neck for nine and a half minutes on the street outside a convenience store where Floyd was suspected of trying to pass a counterfeit $20 bill.

Bystander video captured Floyd's fading cries of 'I can't breathe.' 

His death touched off protests worldwide, some of which turned violent, and forced a national reckoning with police brutality and racism.

Three other former officers who were at the scene received lesser state and federal sentences for their roles in Floyd's death.

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.