Georgia Sheriff Who Shot Exonerated Black Man During Traffic Stop Over Speeding Gets Off Scott-Free
A district attorney in South Georgia announced that the sheriff’s deputy who fatally shot a 53-year-old man during a traffic stop in 2023 would not be criminally charged.
Leonard Cure, 53, was killed in October 2023 after being pulled over by Camden County Staff Sgt. Buck Aldridge on I-95 near the Florida-Georgia border on suspicion of speeding.
A struggle ensued between Cure and Aldridge after the deputy told Cure he was under arrest, but Cure didn’t comply with the deputy’s orders to put his hands behind his back.
Dashcam footage shows Aldridge tasing Cure. Cure pauses during the shock, then spins around, grabs the probes of the Taser, and grapples with Aldridge as cars speed past on the interstate. At one point, Aldridge struck Cure with his baton, but as the struggle continued, the deputy pulled his service weapon and shot Cure at point-blank range.
Cure had been exonerated just three years prior after being wrongly convicted for a 2003 robbery he did not commit. He spent 16 years in a Florida prison before his conviction was vacated and he was finally freed.
Keith Higgins, district attorney for the Brunswick Judicial Circuit, decided not to file criminal charges against Aldridge, telling The Associated Press that Aldridge’s use of lethal force was reasonable since video evidence shows Cure had overpowered him during the struggle.
“After reviewing the investigative case file in the above matter, I have concluded that under the totality of the circumstances, Deputy Aldridge’s use of deadly force was objectively reasonable. The pursuit of criminal charges, therefore, is not warranted,” Higgins wrote in a statement.
Attorneys for Cure’s family members, Ben Crump and Harry Daniels, expressed disappointment at the decision.
“This decision is a devastating failure of justice, sending the message that law enforcement officers can take a life without consequence,” they said in a statement. “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.”
Cure’s family filed a $16 million federal lawsuit against Aldridge and former Camden County Sheriff Jim Proctor, accusing Aldridge of using excessive force and alleging that Proctor hired him despite a documented history of unlawful use of force incidents.
Aldridge was fired from the Kingsland Police Department in 2017 after violating the use of force policy three times. Despite that history, Proctor hired Aldridge nine months later.
Aldridge still works for the Camden County Sheriff’s Office. He was on administrative duty pending the GBI investigation into the fatal shooting.
“The GBI did a thorough investigation and the district attorney came to the right conclusion regarding Mr. Aldridge’s use of force in this instance,” Aldridge’s attorney, Adrienne Browning, told AP. “We’re happy he’ll be able to continue to serve the citizens of Camden County as he’s done for the past 12 years.”
