MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
In Minneapolis, we've been hearing reflections about what it meant to people here when George Floyd was killed by a police officer five years ago, and the officers with him didn't stop him. We also asked attorney Benjamin Crump - he represented Floyd's family in a civil suit against the city, and as he says, in the court of public opinion.
BENJAMIN CRUMP: It was a watershed moment, not just for America, but for people all across the world.
MARTIN: Why do you think that is? Do you have a theory about that? And I ask you as a person who's been involved in so many of these cases at this point. What do you think it is about George Floyd's death that sparked this kind of worldwide movement?
CRUMP: Well, Michel, you and I first met during the Trayvon Martin case, where Trayvon Martin's killer was not held accountable. You look at all of the tragedies - Michael Brown of Ferguson. Hands up, don't shoot. You look at Tamir Rice playing on the playground, being shot within one and a half seconds of the police arriving there. Philando Castile, Sandra Bland - so many where there was no justice. And so when you get to George Floyd, it's almost a clarion call to everybody who felt like Trayvon could have been their son, that Sandra Bland could have been their daughter. Now you're seeing George Floyd, and you're saying, we must get justice.
MARTIN: Do you think that anything has substantively changed since George Floyd was killed?
CRUMP: I think we had many changes since George Floyd was killed. However, so many hashtags, Michel Martin. So we must stay vigilant now more than ever, when it seems like the Department of Justice has abandoned us when it comes to fighting these cases.
MARTIN: Why do you say that?
CRUMP: Because with Breonna Taylor and many others, they said they're not going to prosecute the cases. They say they are abandoned anything - any policies or consent decrees by the Biden administration, Merrick Garland and especially our sister Kristen Clarke, who was the first Black woman to be over the Civil Rights Division at DOJ.
MARTIN: You first became a national figure after Trayvon Martin was killed back in 2012. Since then, you've handled so many of these cases. I mean, on the one hand, you've had, you know, tremendous success in bringing some measure of peace to these families. But yet, still, you keep getting these cases, and I wonder how you feel about that or how you think about that.
CRUMP: Yeah, Michel, if every time they shoot a Black man in the back, we can make them pay 10, $20 million, hopefully, that will stop them from killing us in such extraordinary, unbelievable ways. And even though we win every time in the civil court, it's the criminal courts that we can't control - only the elected officials can. And so we have to make sure we're electing prosecutors and legislators to make laws and make sure those laws are followed fairly and equally. It's about making sure that the words on the courtroom wall are not just rhetorical, but making them real.
MARTIN: What kind of conversation do you think we'll be having five years from now?
CRUMP: Well, I think it'll be a very similar conversation. We've been having this conversation for 400 years in America. So, like Frederick Douglass said, we can't get depressed because of the struggle. We have to celebrate the struggle because without struggle, there could be no progress. And so as long as we're fighting, that means we're giving our children a better chance to have a better world, and that's what motivates me every day.
MARTIN: Ben Crump, thank you so much for speaking with us.
CRUMP: Thank you, Michel. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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