Benjamin Lloyd Crump (born October 10, 1969) is an American civil rights attorney and founder of the Tallahassee, Florida-based law firm Ben Crump Law. He is known for his association with the 2012/2013 George Zimmerman case, and for representing the family of Michael Brown, a 17-year-old African-American man shot and killed by police in Ferguson, Missouri.
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Early life and education
Benjamin Lloyd Crump was born in Lumberton, North Carolina, near Fort Bragg, where his biological father served in the United States Army. The oldest of nine siblings and step-siblings, Crump grew up in an extended family and was raised by his grandmother Mittie. His mother Helen, worked as a hotel maid and in a local Converse shoe factory. His mother sent him to attend high school in Fort Lauderdale, 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.
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Career
Crump is known for taking on cases that garner widespread media attention and civil rights implications. An example was the shooting of Trayvon Martin, who on February 26, 2012 was killed by George Zimmerman. Crump represents Martin's family.
Crump also represented the family of Alesia Thomas, a 35-year-old single African-American mother 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.
Other past clients include 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; the family of Genie McMeans, Jr., an African-American driver who died after being shot by a white state Trooper; the family of Ronald Weekley Jr., a 20-year-old African American skateboarder beaten by police in Venice, California; the family of Tamir Rice, an African-American youth who was killed by police in Cleveland, Ohio while holding an air gun (a replica of a real gun); and the family of Antonio Zambrano-Montes, an illegal immigrant from Mexico who was killed by three policeman in Pasco, Washington while throwing rocks. He previously 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. Crump is representing the family of Corey Jones, who was killed by a plainclothes officer while waiting for a tow truck in South Florida.
Crump currently represents Terrence Crutcher's family, an unarmed black man shot and killed by a Tulsa Police officer as well as Zeke Upshaw, an NBA G League player who collapsed midgame in 2018 and was delayed assistance by the NBA's paramedics.
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 for 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".
In 2017 Crump announced the opening of a new law firm, Ben Crump law, PLLC. In 2018 he became a Board Member for the National Black Justice Coalition.
Bibliography
- Crump, Benjamin L. "Ben Crump -- the Man Who Represented the Families of Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, and Tamir Rice -- Will Not Stop Fighting for Justice." NowThis. 2018.[1]
- Crump , Benjamin L. "Every Black Person Has Had A 'Starbucks Moment'." HuffPost, HuffPost, 21 Apr. 2018.
- Crump, Benjamin L. "After Stephon Clark's Death, Chock and Mourning in Communities across the Nation." USA Today, USA Today, 29 Mar. 2018.
- Crump, Benjamin L. "Stand Your Ground Is a License to Kill. Repeal It." Miami Herald, Miami Herald, 5 Feb. 2018.
- Crump, Benjamin L. "Libyan Slave Trade Perpetuates The Commodification of Black Bodies." HuffPost, HuffPost, 5 Jan. 2018.
- Crump, Benjamin L. "Civil Rights Resolutions for a Better America in 2018." CNN, CNN, 2 Jan. 2018.
- Crump, Benjamin L. "The Unsolved Murder of Tupac Shakur Speaks To The Black Male's Experience Nationwide." HuffPost, HuffPost, 12 Dec. 2017.
- Crump, Benjamin L. "Trump's Response To Charlottesville Was Far Too Little And Way Too Late." HuffPost, HuffPost, 15 Aug. 2017.
- Crump, Benjamin L. "Only A Just America Will Be A Truly Great America." HuffPost, The HuffPost, 15 Jan. 2017.
- Crump, Benjamin L. "Benjamin Crump: Seven Deaths Cannot Be In Vain." TIME, TIME, 8 July 2016.
- Crump, Benjamin (April 20, 2015). "Will America now challenge the standard police narrative?". United States. Crime. Time (South Pacific ed.). 185 (14): 22.
References
External links
- Benjamin Crump on IMDb
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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