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A mere moment before Camden County sheriff’s Staff Sgt. Buck Aldridge shot and killed Leonard Allen Cure. (Screenshot: Camden County Sheriff’s Office)
A Georgia prosecutor will not issue charges against a deputy who shot a previously exonerated robbery defendant to death during a traffic stop. The district attorney, Keith Higgins, of Brunswick Judicial Circuit, said Camden County sheriff’s Staff Sgt. Buck Aldridge was justified in opening fire on Leonard Allen Cure, 53, during a traffic stop on the side of I-95 on Oct. 16, 2023.
“Use of deadly force at that point was objectively reasonable given that he was being overpowered at that time,” he told The Associated Press in a phone interview.
But Cure’s attorneys disagreed with the decision.
“This decision is a devastating failure of justice, sending the message that law enforcement officers can take a life without consequence,” attorneys Ben Crump and Harry Daniels said in a statement to Law&Crime on behalf of Cure’s family. “Leonard Cure was a man who had already fought so hard to reclaim his life after a wrongful conviction, only to have it stolen from him again. His family will not stop fighting for accountability, and neither will we.”
Footage showed Aldridge order Cure out of his truck and to put his hands on the back of the pickup truck. He then ordered Cure to put his hands behind his back, but Cure repeatedly refused. While leaning his front against the back of his truck and facing away from Aldridge, Cure pointed up toward the sky. Aldridge tased him.
Cure then turned around and attacked the officer.
“Yeah, b—-,” Cure said during the struggle with Aldridge. “Yeah, b—-.”
The gunfire appears to happen between minutes 2:15 and 2:25 in this body camera footage. (Warning: The video is disturbing)
In an ongoing federal lawsuit, Cure’s family has sued Aldridge and Camden County Sheriff Jim Proctor. They said that Aldridge, who had a history of misconduct as a law enforcement officer, escalated the traffic stop. Footage shows him walking and grabbing Cure’s arm soon after the man stepped out of the vehicle. The plaintiff lawsuit said that Aldridge’s decision to use a Taser on Cure was unlawful.
Aldridge was fired from the Kingsland Police Department on Aug. 30, 2017, for throwing a woman during a traffic stop.
Cure had spent 16 years in prison, sentenced to life for a 2003 armed robbery in Florida, until prosecutors relented in the face of evidence that he was actually miles from the crime scene.
“This fight is not just for Leonard’s family — it is for every family who has suffered due to unchecked police violence and a chronic lack of accountability,” Crump and Daniels said Tuesday. “We will not let this grave injustice be forgotten. We will continue to demand accountability for the flaws in policing in this country.”