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Kenya Barris To Produce Netflix Doc On Civil Rights Attorney Ben Crump; Breonna Taylor, George Floyd & Ahmaud Arbery’s Families Repped By Lawyer

Dominic Patten
·4-min read

#blackAF creator Kenya Barris is making the move from fictionalized documentary to a real documentary on high-profile attorney Ben Crump.

In the works for the past several pivotal months, the as-yet untitled film on the lawyer is set to stream on Netflix next year. Well known to cable news viewers and more than a few chastened police departments and delinquent corporations, the Tallahassee, Florida-based Crump is currently representing the grieving families of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd &Ahmaud Arbery, among others.

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The documentary will be produced by Barris and Oscar winner Roger Ross Williams. Hot off two Emmy nominations for the Michelle Obama doc Becoming, Nadia Hallgren is set to direct the Crump project. Hallgren will also produce, along with Lauren Cioffi and EP Geoff Martz, co-founder with Williams of production shingle One Story Up.

Production on the project includes the much-watched June 8 memorial for Floyd.

Black-ish boss Barris and other filmmakers on the documentary’s team were in attendance that day in Floyd’s adopted hometown, along with Crump. In addition to George Floyd’s family, relatives of Arbery, Botham Jean, Eric Garner and other killed by police brutality were there too.

George Floyd was killed in the streets by Minneapolis police on Memorial Day.

In full knowledge of the seemingly unconcerned cops, the horrific event was filmed on a witness’ phone and quickly sparked protests and marches across the nation and the world against racism and social injustice.

Derek Chauvin and the other three cops involved have since been fired and arrested to await trial. Chauvin, who pressed his knee down on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes despite pleas from the now deceased, is charged with one count each of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. Ex-officers J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao have all been charged with aiding and abetting murder and manslaughter.

There have been no arrests in the killing of EMT Taylor, who was shot in her apartment on March 13 by Louisville Metro Police Department cops during a no-knock raid – on what was the wrong address. Over 140 days after that act of fatal violence, Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron and Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer finally sat down with Taylor’s family this week. A move that Crump and Taylor’s mother Tamika Palmer said in a statement yesterday made them “more confident that the truth will come out and that justice will be served.”

Keeping the pressure, Crump, who is called “Black America’s Attorney General” by some, posted a further call to action online this morning:

The Crump film is the latest project under the deep pocket deal Barris inked with Netflix back in 2018. Today’s unveiling of the rumored documentary comes just days after the long censored ‘Please Baby, Please’ episode of black-ish was finally made public earlier this week.

The politically themed Barris directed episode was suddenly pulled by Disney-owned ABC in early 2018 as the Bob Iger-run company was deep in the weeds on an ultimately successfully $71.3 billion-dollar purchase of most of Rupert Murdoch’s Fox assets. At the time, “creative differences” were cited as the reason for the shelving.

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