LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — National civil rights attorney Ben Crump and his legal team have picked up Terence Caffey's case after the Pulaski County prosecutor ruled the officers involved would not face criminal charges last month.
Caffey died after he went into medical distress during his arrest last December, and nearly a year later, his family is still grieving.
"We truly are missing Terence and our hearts been broken and we're trying to put the pieces together," Caffey's grandmother said.
Now Crump wants to take legal action against everyone involved.
A few weeks ago law enforcement compiled and released a video that followed the timeline of the night Caffey died.
On Tuesday, Crump's legal team took a closer look at body camera videos from that night— and while released, they were not all shown in that original compilation.
Crump claimed that the investigator's timeline intentionally skipped over the most violent parts of the arrest.
"We're here today because we want you to see the truth. We want you to see what they did not intend for you to see," Crump said.
We wanted to show you the body camera footage that Crump's team showed today— which they believe most accurately shows the violence leading up to Caffey's death.
The video showed a closer view of the officers putting their hand on Caffey's neck and kneeling on his back before dragging him up.
While these events were included in the original timeline, these angles were not. They were instead released within the hours of police video.
Caffey's family and Crump claim that this is excessive use of force and that officers ignored Caffey's pleas that he couldn't breathe— reminiscent of George Floyd's last words.
"When you hear a man who is unarmed, handcuffed, in a prone position, saying 'I can't breathe', what do you do? You put your knee in his back even further? Why didn't it go to a grand jury?" Crump said.