The Camden County Sheriff’s Office has released the disturbing dashcam video of the traffic stop that took the life of Leonard Cure on Oct. 16.
The 53-year-old was recently exonerated for a crime he didn’t commit after serving 16 years in jail and was released only three years ago.
Cure was shot and killed during a traffic stop on Interstate 95 near the Georgia-Florida state line. Video was also released from the deputy’s body camera, and the disturbing footage captured the deputy fatally shooting Cure.
After being pulled over for allegedly speeding, Cure was instructed to exit his vehicle, which he did. The footage shows Cure complying with the deputy when he was told to place his hands on his truck as the deputy pointed his Taser at Cure and called for backup. The situation escalated after the deputy told Cure to put his hands behind his back as Cure asked if he had a warrant.
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“Put your hand behind your back,” yelled the deputy, who identified himself as Staff Sgt. Aldridge.
“Why,” asked Cure with his hands still on his truck. “Do I have a warrant?” As the deputy tried to handcuff Cure, he could be heard saying, “No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Excuse me. Excuse me.”
“Put your hands behind your back! You’re getting tased; I’m telling you that right now!”
“Why am I being tased?” asked Cure.
“You are under arrest for speeding and reckless driving,” screamed Aldridge.
“I’m not driving. Nobody was hurt. How was I speeding?”
“You passed me doing 100 mph,” replied Aldridge.
“OK, so that’s a speeding ticket, right?”
“Sir, tickets in the state of Georgia are criminal offenses,” the deputy said.
After Cure said he had no speeding tickets in Georgia, Aldridge screamed, “You do now!”
Cure responded that he was not going back to jail, and the deputy replied that he was before he shocked Cure with the stun gun while screaming, “Hands behind your back! You are going to jail!”
Cure then turned around and tried to stop the deputy from shocking him and seemingly tried to get the Taser away from the deputy. The two men began to fight, and Aldridge used his baton to try to stop Cure from resisting.
Cure said, “Yeah, b—h, yeah, b—h” before he was shot by Aldridge in his left side. “Stay down! Stay down!” screamed the deputy as Cure’s hands could be seen reaching up and flailing as he lay on the ground in front of the police cruiser.
Watch the body camera and dash camera footage here.
According to WSB-TV, Cure had recently moved to Atlanta from Florida after being exonerated for an armed robbery he didn’t commit and being awarded $817,000 in compensation from the state of Florida.
The Innocence Project of Florida’s Seth Miller represented Cure, who was about to purchase a new home.
“I can’t imagine as a parent what that feels like,” he told CBS News. “I can only imagine what it’s like to know your son is innocent and watch him be sentenced to life in prison, to be exonerated and … then be told that once he’s been freed, he’s been shot dead.”
The deputy has been placed on paid administrative leave while the Georgia Bureau of Investigation investigates the shooting. The Camden County Sheriff’s Department released a statement along with the videos.
“The video will show the traffic offenses of speeding over 100 mph and Reckless Driving, which occurred prior to the body camera video of the Deputy’s encounter with Leonard Cure,” read the statement. “Camden County Sheriff Jim Proctor, along with District Attorney Keith Higgins of the Brunswick Judicial Circuit, and GBI Agents investigating the case decided this morning to make the videos available for public review in an effort to be completely transparent as to what happened, and how the incident escalated to the point of extreme Use of Force.”
The Georgia Innocence Project had recently arranged for Cure to speak at Jonesboro High School in Clayton County about his experience being wrongfully convicted. Cure’s family is being represented by civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump.
“It is godawful that he would escape that injustice to have his life claimed by more bias,” Crump said at a news conference on Monday. “Just because you’re Black should not be the determining factor whether you get a death sentence for a traffic stop.”
