Benjamin Crump

Benjamin Lloyd Crump (born October 10, 1969) is an American attorney who specializes in civil rights and catastrophic personal injury cases such as wrongful death lawsuits.

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.

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 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 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.

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.

His practice has focused on cases such as those of Trayvon Martin, Breonna Taylor, Michael Brown, George Floyd, Keenan Anderson, Randy Cox, and Tyre Nichols, people affected by the Flint water crisis, the estate of Henrietta Lacks, 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 firm Ben Crump Law of Tallahassee, Florida.

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 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".

Benjamin Lloyd Crump was born in Lumberton, North Carolina, near Fort Liberty.

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.

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.

In May 2020, Crump began representing the family of George Floyd, a 46-year-old unarmed African American who was murdered by Minneapolis Police Department officer Derek Chauvin, who knelt on Floyd's neck for over nine minutes.

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."