California correctional officer injured by death row inmate, officials say

A condemned white supremacist attacked a correctional officer Thursday morning at San Quentin State Prison, according to the state corrections department.

Todd Givens, 51, allegedly tried to slash the officer’s neck with a weapon made from two razor blades and a sharpened piece of nail clippers while the officer was picking up food trays in a housing unit.

The officer’s left hand was slashed after he grabbed the weapon, according to the release. He received five stitches at a hospital and was released, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

The officer had transferred to the prison from another institution as part of the department’s response to the coronavirus outbreak at San Quentin, the site of system’s worst concentration of COVID-19.

The department has been reassigning correctional officers and other prison workers to fill vacant positions in 30-day deployments at the prison on the San Francisco Bay.

About 1,100 inmates at the prison have active cases of the disease caused by the virus, according to the department’s patient tracker, and 226 employees have tested positive.

Givens was sentenced to death by a Tulare County jury in 2004 after he and his wife, Lacey Givens, were found guilty of murdering a brother and sister in what prosecutors speculated was a gang-related conflict.

Todd Givens and the man he murdered, Scotty Holstone, were both members of the Nazi Low Riders, a white supremacist prison gang, a prosecutor said during the trial.

Givens has been accused of multiple attacks on inmates and peace officers during several prison stays and jail detentions, witnesses said in the Tulare County trial.

San Quentin houses more than 600 inmates who have been condemned to death. No condemned inmates have been executed since 2006 in California. Gov. Gavin Newsom put a moratorium on the death penalty last year.