OAK PARK HEIGHTS, Minn. – After his conviction for murdering George Floyd last May, former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was delivered to Minnesota’s only Level 5 maximum security state prison. The Oak Park Heights prison, 25 miles from Minneapolis, lies between the St. Croix River cities of Stillwater and Bayport. The prison, built in1982, can accommodate 482 inmates. It’s usually about 95% capacity. Chauvin’s cell is one of 41 in the segregated unit. Spokesperson Sarah Fitzgerald said Chauvin was placed in a closely monitored cell unit that is separated from the general population. He’s segregated for his own safety, Fitzgerald said. In effect she acknowledged that Chauvin, who is white, may be a target of other inmates for the tortured slaying of black man George Floyd in Minneapolis in May.
The yard. Where Derek Chauvin will have access one hour a day max. The fortress itself is partially underground.
The company he keeps
On the Oak Park Heights inmate roster over the years:
> Paul Michael Stephani, known as the Weepy-Voiced Killer, a serial murderer known for his tearful phone calls taunting police in the 1980s. Died 1998.
> Mark Antonio Profit, a murderer known as the Wirth Park Killer, Died 2002
> Byron Smith, who killed his teenage cousins on Thanksgiving 2012. He served out his term
> Lawrence Scott Dame, who fatally bludgeoned his sister, her husband and their three kids as they slept. Five consecutive life terms.
Prison violence
The Oak Park Heights has had one homicide in its 39 years of existence. In 2013 Shane Lawrence Cooper, 30, of Superior, Wisconsin, a child rapist, was found in his cell strangled with a shoelace. Cooper was 13 months into an eight-year sentence. Fellow prisoner Benjamin Heath Beck, 39, an armed robber and burglar, admitted to the murder. Beck was sentenced to an additional 40 years.
Earlier: Jury: George Floyd cop guilty on all counts