Attorney Ben Crump, based out of Tallahassee, Fla., and Rev. Al Sharpton announced they are taking up the case of Hunter Brittain, a white teenager killed by police last month in Arkansas.
This is the first case that Crump has handled which involves an alleged white victim of a police action.
Crump emphasized that his mission has always been to “make sure that all our children can get home safely and not be killed by the police who are supposed to protect and defend them.”
However, previously Crump described his fight against police brutality as the “legalized genocide of colored people.”
Brittain, a 17-year-old, was driving home with a friend around 3:00 a.m. when a Lonoke County sheriff’s deputy pulled him over.
The family claims Brittain’s truck would not shift into park, so he put a “large bright blue plastic bottle” of antifreeze behind a tire to keep the truck from rolling. A 16-year-old, Jordan King who says he witnessed the shooting, said he and Brittain were changing the transmission in his nearby auto shop.
After the blue bottle was placed behind a tire, the deputy opened fire.
Crump and Sharpton were invited to Brittain’s memorial service, where Sharpton gave the eulogy.
“The issue of policing is not about Black and White. It’s about right and wrong,” said Sharpton.
This year, 156 white people and 102 black people have been killed by law enforcement.
Sharpton has previously distanced himself from the progressive wing of the Black Lives Matter movement by criticizing the “abolish the police” crowd.
“To take all policing off is something that I think a latte liberal may go for as they sit around the Hamptons discussing this as some academic problem,” Sharpton said.
Sharpton has also said the riots and looting that took place as a part of last summer’s George Floyd protests were “reckless.”
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Grant Holcomb is a reporter at the Florida Capital Star and the Star News Network. Follow Grant on Twitter and direct message tips.
Photo “Benjamin Crump” by Tony Webster CC BY-SA 2.0.
