Ben Crump, perhaps the nation’s most prominent civil rights attorney, is participating in a wrongful death lawsuit against the University of Pennsylvania.
Ronald Harmon, a 52-year-old father of three, died in January 2025 from a head injury that occurred two months earlier, when Penn Police officers shot him with a Taser in West Philadelphia, according to the legal complaint.
Crump, in collaboration with local attorney Gregg Zeff, sued the Ivy League school and two specific officers involved in the incident this week in federal court on behalf of Harmon’s brother, Bruce. They allege that Penn Police violated Harmon’s constitutional rights and went against their department’s own policies.
“I didn't want no publicity. I just wanted justice,” Bruce Harmon said. “It's been two years, and I haven't heard anything from the university, from the police department, and so this was my way of trying to get some answers for what happened to my brother.”
On the evening of Nov. 5, 2024, campus officers James Squadroni and James Schwartz allegedly spotted Harmon stealing a small package from the foyer of a building on the 4200 block of Spruce Street.
Squadroni, the complaint states, chased Harmon on foot, while Schwartz pulled a patrol vehicle in front of him. When Harmon saw the car, he turned and ran past Squadroni, who then stunned Harmon in the back, according to the lawsuit.
Harmon lost neuromuscular control and fell face first onto the curb, sustaining a severe impact injury to his head, the attorneys said. He was unarmed, did not make any physical contact with either officer and did not issue any verbal threats, the complaint states.
Zeff indicated he has requested, but not received, body camera footage from Penn. He said he hopes the video is made available, assuming it exists.
Penn Police policy allows an officer to use a Taser only if a suspect “is violent, acting aggressively, threatening, physically resisting arrest or actively resisting in a manner likely to cause injury to the officer or others,” according to the lawsuit.
Harmon’s conduct did not meet that threshold, and his alleged crime did not rise to the level of a felony, the family’s attorneys argued.
A Penn spokesperson, in a statement, said that the university “extends its deepest condolences to the family, friends, and loved ones of Ronald Harmon.”
“The University and the Division of Public Safety take any use of force and loss of life with the utmost seriousness,” the statement continued. “Because this matter is now the subject of active federal litigation, the University cannot discuss the specific factual allegations or legal claims outside of the judicial process.
“We remain committed to accountability, transparent standards of conduct, and constructive engagement with our campus and Philadelphia communities."
Zeff and Crump asserted that the officers’ conduct falls within a larger context of law enforcement deploying significant force against Black men fleeing apprehension.
“Why is a Black man running away from you such a dangerous threat?” Crump said. “Why are you in such fear and such harm when Black men are running away from you that you have to shoot from the back?”
Crump has represented the families of Trayvon Martin, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, among many other high-profile clients. He announced the lawsuit alongside Zeff and Bruce Harmon on Monday afternoon inside the Nicetown office of the Philadelphia branch of the NAACP.
“We all look at (Crump) as the voice of Black America when it comes to civil rights and making sure that our voices are heard,” the branch’s president, Catherine Hicks, said.
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