Benjamin Crump Biography
Benjamin Crump is an American attorney who specializes in civil rights and catastrophic personal injury cases. He is also the founder of the Tallahassee, Florida-based law firm Ben Crump Law.
He is well known for his involvement with the case of George Zimmerman in 2012/2013, and for his representation of Michael Brown’s family, a 17-year-old African-American boy shot and killed by police in Ferguson, Missouri. His practice 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 claiming the company’s talcum powder product led to the diagnosis of ovarian cancer.
Benjamin Crump Age
How old is Benjamin Crump? Crump is 54 years old as of 2023. He was born on October 10, 1969, in Lumberton, North Carolina, United States. He celebrates his birthday on October 10 every year.
Benjamin Crump Height
Crump stands at an approximate height of 5 feet 7 inches (1.70 m). Information regarding his other body measurements is currently under research.
Benjamin Crump Family
His biological father served in the U.S. Army, while his mother Helen worked in a nearby Converse shoe factory and as a hotel maid. He grew up in an extended family and was brought up by Mittie, his grandmother. Among the nine siblings and step-siblings, he was the oldest. His stepfather is a math teacher who is identified by Crump as his father.
Benjamin Crump Wife
He is married to Genae Angelique Crump. The couple has two children, and more information about them is under review.
Benjamin Crum Education
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.
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.
Benjamin Crump’s Net Worth
Crump has an estimated net worth of $5 million. Moreover, Crump is rated among the Top 100 best and highly paid Lawyers and was named by Ebony magazine’s Power 100 Most Influential African Americans, receiving NAACP’s Thurgood Marshall Award. He must have accumulated a lot, plus his cars and houses
Benjamin Crump 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.
- Starting 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 the 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 the 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
Benjamin Crump Lawsuits
- 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 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.
- Again 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.
Benjamin Crump Open Season
In his book Open Season: The Legalized Genocide of Colored People, he delivers a forceful debut exposé of America’s “legalized system of discrimination.” Defining “colored people” as “Black and Brown people, and people colored by their sexual orientation, religious views, or gender,” Crump claims that “what happens between the U.S. judiciary and the colored people of this country” is nothing less than genocide — and deliberate effort “to kill a nation, in whole or in part.”
He catalogs high-profile police shootings of African-American people, including Michael Brown, and positions the 2014 water crisis in Flint, Mich., in the light of the “multigenerational killing” triggered by “environmental racism.” He states, among other figures, that “more than half of all Americans living within 1.86 miles of a hazardous waste site are Black or Brown.” Despite his outrage, Crump believes in the US forces. Constitution to end racial discrimination, and offers 12 readers should take “personal action steps” to fight racism. Progressives will welcome a disturbing but plausible account from Crump.
Benjamin Crump Books
- 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.”.
- Crump, Benjamin L. “Every Black Person Has Had A ‘Starbucks Moment'”.
- Crump, Benjamin L. “After Stephon Clark’s Death, Chock, and Mourning in Communities across the Nation.”
- Crump, Benjamin L. “Stand Your Ground Is a License to Kill. Repeal It.”
- Crump, Benjamin L. “Libyan Slave Trade Perpetuates The Commodification of Black Bodies.”
- Crump, Benjamin L. “Civil Rights Resolutions for a Better America in 2018”.
- Crump, Benjamin L. “The Unsolved Murder of Tupac Shakur Speaks To The Black Male’s Experience Nationwide”.
- Crump, Benjamin L. “Trump’s Response To Charlottesville Was Far Too Little And Way Too Late.”
- Crump, Benjamin L. “Only A Just America Will Be A Truly Great America”.
- Crump, Benjamin L. “Benjamin Crump: Seven Deaths Cannot Be In Vain”.
- Crump, Benjamin (April 20, 2015). “Will America now challenge the standard police narrative?”.
Benjamin Crum Documentary
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.”
Benjamin Crump 2020
- 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.
- 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 (hit four times in back) by a police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin, while his children – 3, 5 and 8 – watched from the car. Crump retained Patrick A. Salvi Sr & Jr as co-counsel.