In 2023, a Black man in Georgia who had previously spent 16 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit was shot and killed by a deputy after a traffic stop turned violent. On Tuesday, a district attorney announced the deputy will not face criminal charges for the fatal shooting. It’s the kind of case where even if you believe the decision not to prosecute was fair, you would have to admit the justice system, as a whole, is not.
As we previously reported, 53-year-old Leonard Cure was killed just three years after he was exonerated in Florida, where he was wrongfully convicted of armed robbery in 2004. On Oct. 16, 2023, a Camden County, Georgia, sheriff’s deputy pulled Cure over for speeding on Interstate 95 near the Florida line and ordered him to exit his vehicle. Body- and dash camera video showed Cure refusing to put his hands behind his back as the deputy commanded, and it showed him physically fighting the deputy before he was shot at point-blank range.
From the Associated Press:
“Use of deadly force at that point was objectively reasonable given that he was being overpowered at that time,” District Attorney Keith Higgins told The Associated Press in a phone interview Tuesday.
Higgins, Georgia’s top prosecutor for the coastal Brunswick Judicial Circuit, said he told Cure’s family of his decision during a meeting Monday and also notified the deputy, Staff Sgt. Buck Aldridge.
Attorneys for Cure’s family have insisted Aldridge used excessive force.
“This decision is a devastating failure of justice, sending the message that law enforcement officers can take a life without consequence,” family attorneys Ben Crump and Harry Daniels said in a statement.
Aldridge still works for the Camden County Sheriff’s Office, assigned to its administrative division, said Deputy Dalton Vernakes, a spokesman for Sheriff James Kevin Chaney. Aldridge had been placed on administrative leave while Cure’s shooting was investigated by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
“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, said by email. “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.”
Source: Georgia Prosecutor Declines Criminal Charges Against Deputy Who Killed Exonerated Black Man
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