A lawyer who Rev. Al Sharpton calls “Black America’s Attorney General” for his work with Black Lives Matter cases is taking on a case in Raleigh.
The family of Darryl “Tyree” Williams, a Black man who died Jan. 17 after being tased by Raleigh police, hired Ben Crump, the renowned civil rights and personal injury attorney, to represent them.
Williams, 32, was tased three times by Raleigh police officers while they attempted to arrest him for allegedly possessing drugs outside of a sweepstakes parlor in southeast Raleigh.
On Thursday, Crump is expected to publicly call for the firing of the six officers involved and for manslaughter charges against them, The News & Observer reported.
“Yet again, we see a life lost too soon due to excessive and unreasonable police force,” Crump said in a statement earlier this week announcing his involvement in the Williams case.
“To continue to deploy a taser on someone who discloses a heart condition and begs for mercy reflects an immense amount of apathy and blatant disregard for life, as we saw in the video footage,” Crump said. “We have seen too many people lose their lives to police tasers and stun guns unnecessarily. Just because they don’t shoot bullets does not mean they are not a deadly weapon.”
Here is more to know about Crump and how he became the go-to lawyer in police brutality cases across the country.
North Carolina roots
Crump, 53, is originally from North Carolina and was born in Lumberton in Robeson County. He eventually moved to Florida to attend high school, college and law school, according to a 2012 story about his life from CBS8. He earned his law degree from Florida State University, according to his law firm biography.
He became nationally known in 2012, when he represented the family of Trayvon Martin, a teen killed in Florida by a neighborhood watch volunteer. Since then, Crump has been involved in multiple high-profile cases involving hate crimes and police killings of Black people across the country.
He’s often at the forefront of the press while handling his cases, using his platform to bring pressure onto governments or law enforcement until they agree a financial settlement, the BBC reported.
Some of the more prominent examples in recent years include representing the family of George Floyd, the 46-year-old Black man murdered by Minneapolis police officers in 2020; the family of Ahmaud Arbery, a Black jogger who was murdered by two men in Georgia; and the family of Breonna Taylor, who was fatally shot by Louisville, Kentucky, police officers conducting a raid.
His achievements as a civil rights leader are featured in the 2022 Netflix documentary “Civil: Ben Crump.” Time magazine named him among the Most Influential People of 2021.
What settlements has Ben Crump won?
Crump has won payouts in the vast majority of the civil cases his firm has handled.
That includes:
▪ a $641 million settlement for residents of Flint, Michigan, in a case related to polluted water affecting Black residents
▪ a $27 million settlement for the Floyd family, and
▪ $12 million for the family of Taylor.
He is currently representing the family of Tyre Nichols, who was beaten by Memphis police officers on Jan. 7 and died from his injuries.
Who has Crump represented in North Carolina?
Crump has also acted as an attorney in cases in his home state.
Ben Crump Law represented the family of Andrew Brown, an unarmed Black man who was fatally shot by law enforcement in Elizabeth City in 2021; and the family of Jason Walker, who was killed by an off-duty Cumberland County sheriff’s deputy in January 2022.
In the Brown case, the family filed a $30 million civil rights lawsuit. On June 6, 2022, it was announced that Crump, along with Bakari Sellers of Strom Law Firm and Harry Daniels of Law Offices of Harry Daniels, reached a settlement of $3 million with Pasquotank County, The Associated Press reported.
Tasing-related cases
On the other side of the country, Crump is handling another taser-related death case that also happened in January.
Ben Crump Law filed filed a $50 million wrongful-death claim against the city of Los Angeles for the death of Keenan Anderson, a 31-year-old Black man who was tased several times in under a minute by police, according to The Los Angeles Times.