Photo shows Aflac board member, not inmate who attacked Derek Chauvin | Fact check

Hannah Hudnall, USA TODAY
·2 min read
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The claim: Image shows inmate who stabbed Derek Chauvin

A Dec. 1 Instagram post (direct link, archive link) shows a picture of a smiling man.

"So meet John Turscak the FBI informant that stabbed up Derek Chauvin 22 times," reads text above the image, which originated in a now-deleted X post.

The Instagram post garnered more than 1,000 likes in less than two weeks, while a more viral X post making the same claim was viewed nearly 2 million times and liked more than 8,000 times in a similar amount of time. Related versions of the claim were shared on Instagram, Facebook and X.

More from the USA TODAY Fact-Check Team:

Our rating: False

The photo shows a member of the Aflac board of directors who died in November. No photos of the inmate who attacked former Minneapolis police officer and convicted murderer Derek Chauvin have been released.

Photo shows board member, not inmate

Chauvin was stabbed 22 times by another inmate on Nov. 24 at Tucson's Federal Corrections Institution, where the former Minnesota police officer is currently serving more than 20 years for the murder of George Floyd. Chauvin was seriously injured but survived the attack.

The man shown in the post isn't the inmate who attacked Chauvin.

His name is John "Shelby" Amos II, and he served on the board of directors for the insurance company Aflac before he died on Nov. 30, according to WTVM-9 in Columbus, Georgia. The photo of Amos used in the post matches the one shown in the station's online and on-air stories about his death.

A similar picture of Amos was included in his obituary.

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The inmate who allegedly stabbed Chauvin is an incarcerated former gang member and FBI informant named John Turscak, according to USA TODAY. His photo has not been released publicly.

A spokesperson for the prison declined to comment on Turscak or provide a picture of him.

USA TODAY reached out to the users who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

Reuters, AFP and Check Your Fact also debunked the claim.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Photo doesn't show inmate who attacked Derek Chauvin | Fact check