Benjamin Crump
Benjamin Lloyd Crump is an American attorney who specializes in civil rights and catastrophic personal injury cases such as wrongful death lawsuits. His practice has focused on cases such as those of Trayvon Martin, Breonna Taylor, Michael Brown, George Floyd, Keenan Anderson, Sonya Massey, and Tyre Nichols, people affected by the Flint water crisis, the estate of Henrietta Lacks, the estate of Malcolm X, nearly 200 concertgoers from the 2021 Astroworld Festival, and the plaintiffs behind the 2019 Johnson & Johnson baby powder lawsuit alleging the company's talcum powder product led to ovarian cancer diagnoses. Crump is the founder of the firm Ben Crump Law of Tallahassee, Florida.
In 2020, Crump became the attorney for the families of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and Jacob Blake. In 2021, he became the attorney for a passenger in the car with Winston Boogie Smith and for the family of Daunte Wright. Ongoing cases surrounding their killings or injuries led to protests against police brutality in America as well as internationally.
Due to his legal reputation, he has been referred to as "Black America's attorney general".
Early life and education
Benjamin Lloyd Crump was born in Lumberton, North Carolina, near Fort Bragg. The oldest of nine siblings and step-siblings, Crump grew up in an extended family and was raised by his grandmother. His mother, Helen, worked as a hotel maid and in a local Converse shoe factory. His mother sent him to attend South Plantation High School in Plantation, Florida, where he lived with her second husband, a math teacher, whom Crump regards as his father.Crump attended Florida State University and received his bachelor's degree in criminal justice in 1992 and his Juris Doctor in 1995. He is a life member of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity.
Early career
2002–2014: Martin and Brown cases
In 2002, Crump represented the family of Genie McMeans Jr., an African American driver who died after being shot by a White state trooper. In 2007, Crump represented the family of Martin Lee Anderson, a teenager who died after a beating in 2006 by guards in a Florida youth detention center.In 2012, Crump began representing the family of Trayvon Martin, who was killed by George Zimmerman on February 26, 2012.
Crump also represented Ronald Weekley Jr., a 20-year-old African-American skateboarder beaten by police in Venice, California in 2012.
Crump also represented the family of Alesia Thomas, a 35-year-old African-American woman who died while in police custody in August 2012. Journalist Chuck Philips reported that during the arrest by LAPD Officer Mary O'Callaghan, Thomas was "slammed to the ground, handcuffed behind her back, kicked in the groin, hog-tied and stuffed into the back seat of a patrol car, where she died." Crump demanded that dashboard video of the incident be released, threatening legal action and encouraging Attorney General Eric Holder to launch a federal probe. In October 2013, one of the arresting officers was charged with felony assault of Thomas, pleading not guilty. Judge Shelly Torrealba signed off on a request by the district attorney's office only to release the video to prosecutors and defense attorneys. This was to prevent the tainting of potential jury candidates, O'Callaghan's attorney Robert Rico said.
On August 11, 2014, the family of Michael Brown announced that they would be hiring Crump to represent their case, especially as the death had been widely compared to the Trayvon Martin case. Also in 2014, Crump was initially hired to represented the family of Tamir Rice, an African-American youth who was killed by police in Cleveland, Ohio, while holding a toy gun. Samaria Rice, the mother of Tamir Rice has criticized Crump and stated that she fired him 6–8 months into Tamir's case. One reason was that she felt it was questionable whether Benjamin Crump knew the laws in the state of Ohio.
2015–2019: Continued civil rights work
In 2015, Crump represented the family of Antonio Zambrano-Montes, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who was killed by three policemen in Pasco, Washington. Also in 2015, he represented the family of Kendrick Johnson, an African-American high-school student who was found dead at his school in Valdosta, Georgia, under mysterious circumstances, but stepped down from their legal team in late 2015. In late 2015, Crump began representing the family of Corey Jones, who was killed by a plainclothes officer while waiting for a tow truck in South Florida.In 2016, Crump began representing the family of Terence Crutcher, an unarmed black man shot and killed by a Tulsa police officer.
In 2017, Crump announced the opening of a new law firm, Ben Crump Law, PLLC.
In 2018, Crump represented the family of Zeke Upshaw in a wrongful death suit after Upshaw, an NBA G League player, collapsed mid-game and was delayed assistance by the NBA's paramedics. Also in 2018 he became a board member for the National Black Justice Coalition.
In 2019, Crump partnered with law firm Pintas & Mullins to hold several rallies in Flint, Michigan for communities affected by the Flint water crisis. Also in 2019, Crump began representing several plaintiffs in a lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson alleging that the company's talc powder was directly related to said-plaintiffs' ovarian cancer diagnoses.
Injury and death cases
2020 cases
In early 2020, Crump began working with the family of Ahmaud Arbery, an unarmed 25-year-old African-American man murdered by two White civilians. Around this same time, the family of police shooting-victim Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old African-American woman, retained Crump for the family's lawsuit alleging excessive force and gross negligence by the Louisville Metro Police Department. Taylor was killed after police entered her apartment after obtaining a flawed "no-knock warrant" and shot Taylor eight times.After the death of 46-year old George Floyd in May 2020, Crump began representing his family. George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis Police Department officer Derek Chauvin, who knelt on Floyd's neck for over nine minutes. At the time, Floyd was unarmed and exclaimed to Chauvin and other deputies "I can't breathe". Chauvin was initially charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter; however, an additional second-degree murder charge was added 10 days later, and the three officers also present at the scene were subsequently charged with "aiding and abetting second-degree murder and aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter." In April 2021, Chauvin was convicted on all three charges. In June 2020, Crump testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee about the George Floyd case and the discriminatory treatment of African Americans by the U.S. justice system.
In a two-day span in late August 2020, Crump was among counsel retained to represent the families of Trayford Pellerin, a 31-year-old African American man killed by police in Lafayette, Louisiana, and Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old African-American man shot at seven times by a police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin, while his children watched from the car. Crump retained Patrick A. Salvi Sr & Jr as co-counsel.
2021 cases
In early 2021, Crump began representing the family of nineteen-year-old Christian Hall, who was shot and killed by Pennsylvania State Troopers in Monroe County. Hall was shot and killed in December 2020 on the overpass to Interstate 80 in Hamilton Township after reports of a suicidal man with a gun on the bridge. Troopers said that at one point during negotiations, Hall was uncooperative and pointed the gun in the direction of officers. State Police then shot and killed Hall. Attorneys for the family, including Crump, stated that a video circulating online shows a different story.In April 2021, Crump began representing the family of Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old African American shot and killed by a Brooklyn Center Police Department officer. Former Brooklyn Center Police Chief Tim Gannon said that the officer intended to use her taser but inadvertently drew her handgun. On December 23, 2021, a Hennepin County, Minnesota jury found the officer who shot him, Kimberly Potter, guilty of first-degree manslaughter and second-degree manslaughter. On October 3, 2022, nearly 18 months after the April 11, 2021 police-involved fatal shooting of 20-year-old Daunte Demetrius Wright in Minneapolis, the Wright family and the office of Benjamin Crump were served a lawsuit by Chyna Whitaker, Wright's son's mother. Whitaker filed the suit over GoFundMe proceeds she said were to go to her. A spokesperson for attorney Ben Crump told the press, "This is strictly a family dispute between the mother of Daunte Wright's child and Daunte's parents."
In 2021, Crump and Christopher Seeger announced that they would be representing members of the family of Henrietta Lacks in a lawsuit against several pharmaceutical companies that have profited from the cell line HeLa, which is based on cervical cancer cells taken from Lacks without her knowledge in 1951, when it was not illegal to do so. The family of Lacks came to a confidential settlement with Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. in July 2023.
2022 cases
Crump began representing Amir Locke's family in February 2022. Locke was shot and killed by the Minneapolis Police Department on February 2, 2022, while police were executing a search warrant.In April 2022, Crump took on the case of Patrick Lyoya of Grand Rapids, Michigan, who was killed by Officer Christopher Schurra, a police officer from the Grand Rapids Police Department, who shot Lyoya in the back of the head after Lyola fled a traffic stop. Lyoya was unarmed.
In May 2022, Crump was retained by the families of Andre Mackneil, Geraldine Talley, and Ruth Whitfield, three victims of the 2022 Buffalo shooting on May 14. That same month, Crump took on the case of Rwandan politician Paul Rusesabagina, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison by the Rwandan government.
In October 2022, Crump was retained by the family of Erik Cantu. The 17-year-old was shot by a San Antonio Police Department officer while eating a hamburger in his car at a McDonald's parking lot. In December 2022, Crump was hired by Emily Proulx, a passenger of Cantu's during the shooting.