AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
In his debut novel, the civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump imagines a horrific crime that feels all too real. A Black man named Hollis Montrose gets stopped by white police officers while driving in Chicago. The man compliantly answers the officer's questions, but suddenly, the officers yank him from his car, kick him in the ribs, then they shoot him 10 times.
BENJAMIN CRUMP: (Reading) It wasn't fair. None of it was fair. How could so much be taken from him without provocation, as if his life held no meaning - inconsequential, like that of an insect caught in a gale, whipped and thrashed until splattering on a car's windshield.
RASCOE: Ben Crump's new book is called "Worse Than A Lie." It follows a winding, perilous path to justice for Hollis Montrose. Ben Crump joins me now. Good morning.
CRUMP: Good morning, Queen.
RASCOE: Well, thank you very much. Hollis Montrose is an older Black man who is a respected former police officer, and he has a loving wife and family, but he becomes the victim of police brutality himself. What were you trying to illustrate through this characterization?
CRUMP: Certainly, Ayesha. This situation, Hollis Montrose, this Black police officer, you can't find a better citizen. And that was intentional because I know oftentimes when you have cases of police brutality, they try to assassinate the victim's character. Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and the list goes on and on. But I wanted to have a character who was a good person through and through. But when we have a system that immediately tries to have the officers appear as angels and the victims appear as something less than, that's where Attorney Beau Lee Cooper realizes very early on in the novel that it's a broken system, and to beat a broken system, he's going to need more than just the truth.
RASCOE: This attorney, Beau Lee Cooper, who is this civil rights attorney who has helped all these people, he knows how to do the media coverage. I mean, Beau Lee, Ben Crump, what (laughter) can you talk about - I guess I want you to talk to me about how much of Beau Lee Cooper is Ben Crump, and how much of Beau Lee Cooper is the character?
CRUMP: I want to say Beau Lee draws on some of the experiences that Ben Crump has learned over the years. I grew up watching old "Perry Mason" television shows with my grandmother. As I got older in law school, I read John Grisham's "The Rainmaker" and Michael Connelly's "The Lincoln Lawyer." And these were incredible legal thrillers. But what I did not see was me and my culture and my community represented. So with the Beau Lee Cooper series, this is the first time you see a brother who's going to be this legal hero. I would like to think that it's a legal thriller wrapped in Black culture.
RASCOE: Obviously, you're a civil rights attorney. You've been involved in some high-profile cases representing the families of George Floyd, Michael Brown, Breonna Taylor, and many others. You talked about in this book about how Beau Lee Cooper would need more than the truth. What do you mean by that, needing more than the truth?
CRUMP: My grandmother, when I was a little boy, she would say, what's worse than a lie? And that is to tell the truth and nobody believe you. In this book, the prosecutors, the judge, the police union, everybody is trying to oppress the truth, even though...
RASCOE: And has that been your experience? Not to cut you off, Attorney Crump, but has that been your experience?
CRUMP: Oh, that is certainly my experience. It's the system. You know, we say, oh, well, that's a bad apple. No, the system is bad, and we have to make the system see all citizens as American citizens and not have a hierarchy on who deserves the constitutional rights and who doesn't. And so that's what Beau Lee Cooper understands in "Worse Than A Lie," that he's going to have to fight not only in the court of law, but also in the court of public opinion, that he's going to need people in the community, but he's also going to need people who will look at the video with unbiased eyes.
RASCOE: Yeah. Let's talk about the video because it does come out later in the book that a witness recorded the incident involving Hollis and the white officers. And so there is video footage, and the family of Hollis is like, well, this should make everything straight, right? We got it on camera. But repeatedly in the book, Beau Lee's like, that's not enough. And obviously, we have seen witness videos in so many of these cases - right? - George Floyd and the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Macklin Good in Minneapolis.
CRUMP: Yes.
RASCOE: Talk to me about the importance of the videos but how that's not enough.
CRUMP: You know, it really, Ayesha, is imitating life. Hollis Montrose is shot 10 times on video. And in real life, Alex Pretti in Minneapolis is shot 10 times by ICE agents on video. People see the video. They create different narratives. The system tries to be able to say what parts of the video can be used and not used. And they have experts testify to why you should not trust your own eyes. And so you see all of that playing out in the novel, but we see it all playing out, Ayesha, in real life.
RASCOE: Staying on the topic of Minneapolis, you are consulting with the attorneys representing the family of Renee Macklin Good. What can you tell us about the competing investigations, federal and state, into her death?
CRUMP: Just like with Alex Pretti, Renee Good case is very similar to what's happening in the book, the fact that we have video. But then you have the narrative coming from the Justice Department and Homeland Security that she pointed the vehicle at the officer, and so the officer was in a life-or-death situation and had to use deadly force. I submit to you, in Renee Good's situation, there were 100 things this officer could have done besides to shoot and kill Renee Good.
RASCOE: I want to also just ask you, because Beau Lee Cooper uses - you know, he knows that he has to utilize the media. Sometimes attorneys as yourself will face criticism because they'll say, oh, it's a media hound. They want attention, all of that. What were you trying to show in the book about the use of the media by an attorney like Beau Lee?
CRUMP: Thurgood Marshall once said that most people would never really know what happens in the courtroom when you're fighting for liberty and justice. He said he would write his legal memos and his briefs and his pleadings to be engaging so people will not only be engaged but people would be learning what actually happens in a courtroom. Well, what could be more engaging than a legal thriller? Millions and millions of people read legal thrillers. And so I wanted to create a civil rights legal thriller because God knows we need more civil rights and civil rights lawyers in America today in 2026. I pray that "Worse Than A Lie" will inspire the next generation of civil rights lawyers.
RASCOE: That's civil rights attorney and author Benjamin Crump speaking about his new novel. it's called "Worse Than A Lie." Thank you so much for joining us.
CRUMP: Thank you so much, queen. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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