Lawyer behind George Floyd, Darryl Williams death cases to speak at NCCU commencement

He’s suing the Raleigh police department, but first, he will take center stage at a local HBCU’s graduation ceremony.

This week, North Carolina Central University announced that renowned civil rights attorney Ben Crump will be the school’s keynote speaker at this year’s commencement.

Crump is known for representing families in high-profile civil rights cases. In recent years, he has garnered widespread attention for his work on cases without household names: Trayvon Martin, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd.

But most recently, Crump has taken up a case in the Triangle.

In February, he announced that he would represent the family of Darryl Williams, a 32-year-old man who died after Raleigh police officers tased him three times, in their fight for criminal charges against the officers involved.

Body camera footage from Williams’ death shows him being stopped by police on Jan. 17 near Rock Quarry Road in Raleigh. Despite telling officers that he had a heart condition after he was tased twice, Raleigh police tased Williams for a third time when he lost consciousness. Williams never woke up.

“We are here in the capital of our home state, here in Raleigh, North Carolina, fighting for justice for Darryl Tyree Williams,” Crump said in February when he took on the case.

“We come here to disturb the peace and the fact that we don’t want everybody to sleep comfortable saying we can just kill Black people unnecessarily and unjustifiably.”

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 will speak at NCCU’s commencement on May 6.