18 new york | july 8–21, 2019His face is round and somber as a war mask. He’s wearing a dark
suit, a crisp white shirt with French cuffs, gold cuff links, a heavy
gold watch, and a thick gold wedding ring. On his left lapel, a gold
Eagle of Justice spreads its wings.
Like many of the lawsuits Crump takes on, this one seems des-
tined to make national headlines. But unlike the explosive battles
that made him famous—he represented the families of Trayvon
Martin, Mike Brown Jr., Tamir Rice, Alesia Thomas, and Terence
Crutcher and has worked on many, many less notorious Black
Lives Matter cases—this one doesn’t involve a grieving relative,
police violence, or a dead child. The man seated across from him
is a successful financial-services executive, dressed with casual
elegance in a dark blazer and knit shirt, who was educated at a
prestigious HBCU and is accompanied by an old friend who hap-
pens to be a former state representative. His trouble started, he
says, when he went into the wrong bank to cash a $2,000 check
and the teller told him to wait while he checked with the branch
manager. “I asked him if there was a problem, and he told me, ‘No,
it’ll just be a second,’ ” the executive says. “Then a policewoman
comes up and says, ‘I’m here for you.’ ” He laughs. “I thought she
was just being friendly! Maybe she’s a client, you know.”
“Because you’ve never been arrested,” Crump says.
“I don’t get arrested,” he scoffs.
“And at some point she said, ‘Don’t run’?”
“When she was handcuffing me,” the executive answers. “She
said, ‘I can tell you want to run. Don’t run.’ ” Looking freshly aston-
ished, he asks, “Run where? And why?”
The check was a distribution from his 401(k), so it had two bank
names on top. One was his home bank’s, the other that of the bank
that managed his company’s 401(k) fund, and he thought he could
cash it at either one. A vice- president did call to apologize a few days
later, but the bank must not have told the police it was a mistake,
because the charges haven’t been dropped. The executive isn’t sure
he wants to raise a fuss —in his business, “arrested for bank fraud”
isn’t the best thing to have at the top of your Google search. He’s only
here because the former state representative called Crump and set
up the meeting.
Crump sits still, coaxing out the details in a soft voice that mixes
legal terminology with phrases like “how they done you.” The execu-
tive tells him the bank’s official story, which is that a branch manager
called a fraud line and got the wrong information. But he’s not sure
he believes it. He was on his way home from the gym, still wearing
his workout clothes, and the bank was in Cobb County.
The former state representative explains: In black neighbor-
hoods, people say Cobb is short for “Count on Being Busted.” It’s
the richest and whitest part of Atlanta, home to Newt Gingrich
and Bob Barr.
Pulling out his phone, Crump shows the executive a video he’s
already put together from the security-cam footage. The title,superimposed over the entire clip, is “Banking While Black.” He
wants to set up a press conference in the morning and release it
to the media.
“Let’s talk about that,” the executive says nervously.
“How did you feel in the back of that police car?” Crump asks.
“Obviously, I went through a variety of feelings,” the executive
says, then changes the subject.
Crump lets it go. But after a few minutes, the executive suddenly
pops out an answer. “You asked how I felt? I was terrified. Because,
the day before, I watched the Sandra Bland movie. And I just kept
thinking, This is how it happens. This is how it happens.”
That triggers the executive’s memory—the four hours he spent
in a little room with no windows, the fear he felt of getting raped
or beaten, the inmate who noticed how nervous he was and said,
“Relax, it’s not who you know, it’s who you blow.” He was there half
the night before the police let him make a phone call. Nobody
knew where he was. But the hardest part was losing his voice.
From the time he walked into the bank to the moment he got out
of jail, nobody would listen to anything he said. “That to me is
what really happened,” he says. “Because I’m a person who’s able
to explain what’s going on, and you’re always taught if you can just
explain and you’re in the right, then it’s supposed to go okay.”
The truth, Crump admits, is that the bank would settle this case
in a heartbeat. But the executive could also choose not to settle.
“I think this video is going to go viral, and I think it’s gonna be a
teachable moment for America. But, more importantly, it’s probably
gonna save a lot of regular black folks from having to go to jail.”
The executive mulls it over.
“This is your Rosa Parks moment,” the state representative
tells him.
“You don’t even have to say anything if you don’t want to—the
video will speak for itself,” Crump says.
“Don’t you think we could still get accomplished what we need
to get accomplished without—”
“If you want to make an impact—” Crump begins.
The executive jumps in: “What if you just wanna be a selfish ass?”five years ago, sitting in the lobby of a hotel in St. Louis,
I asked Crump why he became a lawyer. It was the day of Michael
Brown Jr.’s memorial service. Thousands of people had gathered
in the street outside, their faces contorted by grief and rage, tears
streaming down their cheeks, chanting “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot”In the lobby of
a luxury hotel in
Atlanta, Ben
Crump is meeting
a new client
for the first time.
Advocating for Trayvon Martin in 2012.PHOTOGRAPHS: JOE RAEDLE/GETTY IMAGES (MARTIN); JEFF ROBERSON/AP PHOTO (BROWN); RICH PEDRONCELLI/AP PHOTO (CLARK)