Benjamin Crump


Benjamin Lloyd Crump is an American civil rights attorney who specializes in civil rights and catastrophic personal injury cases. His practice has focused on leading high-profile cases such as Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, the poisoned children from the Flint water crisis, 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 also founder of the Tallahassee, Florida-based law firm Ben Crump Law.
In 2020, Crump became the attorney for the families of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd, whose deaths led to unprecedented protests against police brutality in America as well as internationally.

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 identifies as his father.
He attended Florida State University and received his bachelor's degree in criminal justice in 1992. Crump received his Juris Doctor from Florida State University in 1995. A classmate of Crump's at Florida State University College of Law was journalist Shannon Bream. He is a life member of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity.

Career

2002 - 2014: Early career, 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, an African-American 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 female 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 to only 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 represented the family of Tamir Rice, an African-American youth who was killed by police in Cleveland, Ohio while holding a toy gun.

2015 - present: Continued police brutality lawsuits, George Floyd case

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 Terrence 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 midgame 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 a number of rallies in Flint, Michigan for communities affected by the Flint water crisis. Also in 2019, Crump began representing a number of plaintiffs in a lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson alleging that the company's talc powder was directly related to said-plaintiffs' ovarian cancer diagnoses.
In early 2020, Crump began working with the family of Ahmaud Arbery, an unarmed 25-year-old African-American man killed 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.
In May 2020, Crump began representing the family of George Floyd, a 46-year-old unarmed African-American killed by a Minneapolis Police Department officer after the officer detained Floyd in a chokehold by kneeling on Floyd's neck. Derek Chauvin, the officer who killed Floyd, was initially charged with 3rd degree murder and 2nd degree manslaughter; however an additional 2nd degree murder charge was added ten 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 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.

Documentary appearances

In April 2017, Crump appeared as an attorney on the American reality prime-time court show You the Jury, canceled after two episodes. Later, in December 2017, Crump investigated the murder of Tupac Shakur in the television documentary series Who Killed Tupac? The show narrates an investigation led by Crump, who works with Tupac's brother, Mopreme Shakur. In 2018, Crump hosted a documentary television series on TV One called Evidence of Innocence. The show focused on people who served at least a decade behind bars after being wrongfully convicted of a crime. Crump hoped to "impact the larger society about these larger matters so they can be aware when they go into the courtroom as jurors".