Ben Crump Circus Takes Nolan Wells To NAACP Convention -- Leaves Justice Behind | Jason Whitlock Harmony

**Jason Whitlock** (0:01)
Jussie Smollett must be on the way. They're about to dig up the grave of Emmett Till and have him speak at one of these press conferences.
And that's literally what, I think they're trying to make this Emmett Till 2.0, but.
That was me 11 days ago. Before Ben Crump had booked a convention hall in Chicago, before Terrell Owens wrote his check, before Spike Lee and Tyler Perry signed on. I told you they were going to run the Emmett Till Play. And this morning they ran it. They put that grieving mother on a stage at the NAACP National Convention and dressed her in icon, iconography, oh man, I'm killing it. They dressed her up like a martyr. Same script, every single time. So let me tell you what this actually is, because I've read this play before too. There's a proverb, the first to speak seems right until another comes and examines him. Hold on to that, because this week, a whole lot of famous people have been speaking first and nobody, nobody has been examined yet.
An independent autopsy is a medical document. So somebody explained to me why the findings got announced from a stage at a national convention in Chicago, 900 miles from where this young man died.
Since when does a coroner need a keynote slot?
I'm Jason Whitlock. You're on the Harmony Channel. Thank you for joining me.
I want to do something today that has gone completely out of style. I want to start with what we actually know before we get to what everybody feels. Here's what we know. Nolan Wells, 18 years old, a college football player, went on a boat trip with friends to Horn Island on the 4th of July. Two days later, he was found dead near the last place he was seen. The Jackson County Sheriff has said, on the record, there are no signs of foul play, and the investigation is ongoing. They've interviewed around 60 people. The FBI is assisting. There is no cause of death released, none. And the online swamp has gotten so bad, the sheriff had to publicly warn people they're spreading AI-generated videos, fake footage, pretending to fill in the gaps. So that's the foundation. A grieving family, a dead teenager, an open investigation, and zero, zero public evidence that anybody harmed this young man. Now hold that picture in your head, because everything I'm about to describe got built on top of that picture. And I want you to keep asking one question. Does the size of this circus match the size of what we actually know?
Because that's what this is now. It's a circus, a circus travels. Let me walk you through the tour dates. Stop one, New York City, three days, three days after Nolan Wells' body was found, before an autopsy, before a cause of death, before anybody knew anything, Ben Crump was on a plane to Manhattan to hold a press conference with the Reverend Al Sharpton. Think about the speed of that. A family in Mississippi is still stuck in shock and the most famous civil rights attorney in America is already at the podium in New York with a microphone. You don't book Madison Square Garden three days after you get the idea for a concert, unless the concert was always the point. Stop two, Mississippi, the funeral and the eulogy. The eulogy, the sacred sending off of an 18 year old boy was delivered by Al Sharpton, a man who never knew Nolan Wells, never coached him, never sat in a pew with him, didn't know his laugh, his nickname, what position he played. He flew in, delivered the eulogy for a child who was a stranger to him and flew back out. That's not a mourner, that's a headliner. He had a tour date. Stop three, Chicago, this morning, the independent autopsy findings, one's Ben Crump paid for, announced not at a hospital, not by a medical examer, but from the stage of the 117th NAACP National Convention, with the NAACP CEO standing there, with the parents standing there as the backdrop, and running underneath all three stops, the money. Let's count the collection plate. Sharpton's National Action Network, $50,000. Tyler Perry matches it, another $50,000. Terrell Owens, 25 grand. We're at $125,000, and we're just at the beginning of this. A reward? A reward for what? A reward that leads to an arrest and a conviction for a death the sheriff says shows no sign to foul play.
So we got more than $100,000, hired the famous most attorney in America, and booked a national convention hall to solve a crime that as of right now, no investigator has confirmed even happened. That's not a search for truth, that's a production. Three cities, one headliner, a paid autopsy, and a supporting cast, and every good touring act picks up a band along the way. Look who Crump has assembled. You've got the artist, Spike Lee, Tyler Perry, lending the cultural prestige. You've got the athlete, Terrell Owens, lending the checkbook. And then you've got the two most telling members because they show you the two wings of this thing. Wing one, the politician, Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, gets on X and calls for a, for, quote, full, fair and independent criminal investigation. That's the policy script. Clean, official, righteous sounding. Except we already have an investigation. The FBI is assisting. 60 people interviewed. What Jeffries is demanding already exists. He's just demanding it louder on camera because, let the professionals finish their work doesn't trend and doesn't fundraise. Wing two, the performer. Enter Stephen A. Smith. And I want to be fair and precise because, that's the whole point of this episode. Here's what Stephen A. Smith actually posted on X, word for word. This is a very sad day. Nolan Wells was laid to rest today. My heart goes out to his family and loved ones, but it ain't over. We need to find out what happened to that young man.