Seeking justice
Ben Crump is more than a lawyer to the families he represents.
Ben Crump held his hands up and counted the number of minutes that a Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee into George Floyd’s neck before the 46-year-old black man died.
Those eight minutes and 46 seconds amounted to “torture,” the civil rights attorney said in an emotional speech Wednesday in front of the store where Floyd took his last breath. At Crump’s side was Floyd’s son, Quincy Mason Floyd, who appeared distraught and asked for justice in his father’s case.
“George Floyd begged for air,” Crump said. “He called out for Quincy’s grandmother. He called out to anybody who would listen.”
This impassioned plea for justice demonstrates why Crump is known as the emergency attorney for black families who’ve lost a loved one to what they believe is a racist killing.
Crump, 50, rose to prominence when he represented the family of Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old black boy who was fatally shot by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman in 2012.
Crump also represents the families of Ahmaud Arbery – a 25-year-old black man fatally shot by two white men while jogging through a south Georgia neighborhood – and Breonna Taylor, a 26year-old black woman shot at least eight times by Louisville police who entered her apartment with a no-knock warrant.
“Ben Crump is more than their lawyer,” said Sean Pittman, a Tallahassee based attorney who attended undergrad and law school with Crump at Florida State University. “Ben Crump becomes their therapist, Ben Crump becomes their chief marketer, he becomes their lobbyist, he becomes their advocate, and I suspect that by the end, he becomes a family member.”
Supporters say many families choose Crump because he has a proven ability to amplify their cases to a national audience. He’s on the front lines at news conferences, speaks out at rallies and marches with protesters.
During Wednesday’s news conference, Crump named a long list of black people whose killings gained national attention and sparked outrage.
“Let’s take a breath collectively for all of the marginalized and disenfranchised and dehumanized people, whether black, brown, white or red, who were killed unjustifiably, who were killed unnecessarily and who (were) killed senselessly,” Crump said. “Because they are American citizens, one; they are human beings, two; and finally, we should all remember they are children of God.”
In the Trayvon Martin case, though Zimmerman was acquitted, Crump helped the family settle a wrongful death lawsuit against the homeowners’ association in the gated community where he was killed. The amount of the
settlement was not disclosed.
Two years after Martin’s death, Crump represented the family of Michael Brown, an 18-year-old black man fatally shot by Ferguson, Missouri, police officer Darren Wilson. A grand jury decided not to indict Wilson. Crump helped Brown’s family win a $1.5 million settlement from the city of Ferguson.
Mark O’Mara, the attorney who represented Zimmerman, said Crump was a tough competitor in the trial.
He credited Crump with getting the case national attention and promoting the message that young black men are profiled and unfairly targeted.
“Ben did a masterful job of keeping that in the public view,” O’Mara told USA TODAY. “I was fighting for a client, Ben was fighting for a cause.”
Crump said the repeated police killings of black men point to a larger societal issue that dates back to slavery.
“We have two justice systems in America, one for black America and one for white America,” Crump said.
Crump said Monday that he is “cautiously optimistic” that there will be convictions in the Arbery, Floyd and Taylor cases.
Cellphone videos, he said, have become a “game changer” in racist police killings, especially when police reports leave out details.
For example, the Minneapolis Police Department released a statement to the media May 25 about Floyd’s death that failed to mention that officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on his neck for roughly nine minutes during the arrest.
“It tells you that without this video, they would have lied and tried to sweep his murder under the rug, and we never would have knew the truth just as they would have done with Ahmaud Arbery,” Crump said. “The videos, I believe, are a game changer in the sense that it lets you see for yourself and nobody has to interpret it for you. It’s one of those things that black people have said for years that the ‘police brutalized me,’ ‘the police used excessive force against me,’ but nobody would believe us.”
Civil rights leader Al Sharpton said he first met Crump in 2006 when the two partnered to advocate for the family of Martin Lee Anderson, 14, who died at a Florida boot camp during physical training.
The family accused guards of physically coercing Anderson, who was black, to continue after he complained of fatigue.
The seven guards and the nurse charged with manslaughter were acquitted.
Sharpton said they forged a close relationship, and Crump called on him for help with the Martin case six years later.
“Ben is a guy that helps build a moment into a movement,” Sharpton said. “He’s savvy, courageous and he knows the law.”
Crump said his interest in inequality started young.
The oldest of nine siblings and stepsiblings, Crump grew up in Lumberton, North Carolina. His mother worked two jobs – at a hotel laundry room during the day and a Converse shoe factory at night – to make ends meet.
Crump said he wanted to know why so many black families struggled with poverty while white families didn’t.
“I wanted to understand this money and ownership disparity that seemed to be very much tied up with economic justice and race,” Crump wrote in his book “Open Season: Legalized Genocide of Colored People.”
“Ben Crump becomes their therapist, Ben Crump becomes their chief marketer, he becomes their lobbyist, he becomes their advocate.” Sean Pittman