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.”
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.