A Georgia deputy won't be charged for killing an exonerated man during a violent traffic stop

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — A Georgia sheriff's deputy won't face criminal charges for fatally shooting a Black man during a 2023 traffic stop that spiraled into a violent struggle, the district attorney who examined body camera video and other evidence in the killing said Tuesday.

Leonard Cure, 53, was killed just three years after Florida authorities had freed him from prison after serving 16 years for a crime he did not commit.

A white deputy in Camden County, Georgia, pulled Cure over for speeding on Interstate 95 near the Florida line on Oct. 16, 2023. The deputy ordered Cure to get out of his pickup truck and shocked him with a stun gun when Cure refused to put his hands behind his back. Body and dash camera video showed Cure was fighting back and had a hand at the deputy's throat when he was shot point-blank.

“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.

Deputy Dalton Vernakes, a spokesman for Camden County Sheriff James Kevin Chaney, confirmed Aldridge remains employed by the sheriff. Aldridge had been placed on administrative leave while Cure's shooting was investigated by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Vernakes said he did not immediately know whether Aldridge had returned to normal duties.

An attorney for Aldridge, Adrienne Browning, did not immediately return an email message seeking comment Tuesday.

Relatives have said Cure likely resisted because of psychological trauma from his long imprisonment in Florida for an armed robbery he didn’t commit. Officials exonerated and freed him in 2020.

Cure was killed after being pulled over on suspicion of reckless driving as he was traveling home to Atlanta after visiting his mother in Port St. Lucie, Florida.

The sheriff's office released Aldridge's body and dash camera video of the traffic stop two days after the shooting. It showed the deputy ordering Cure to get out and stand with his hands on his pickup truck, telling Cure that he was speeding in excess of 100 mph (160 kph).

On the video, Aldridge shocks Cure with a stun gun after he ignores commands to put his hands behind his back. Cure then spins around, flailing his arms, and grabs the deputy as traffic speeds past.

The video shows both men grappling as Cure gets a hand on the deputy’s lower face and neck and begins forcing his head backward. The deputy strikes Cure in the side with a baton, but Cure maintains his grip.

“Yeah, bitch!” Cure says on the video. Then a single pop sounds and Aldridge can be seen holding his handgun as Cure slumps to the ground.

Lawyers for Cure's family have said the Camden County sheriff should never have hired Aldridge, who was fired by the neighboring Kingsland Police Department in 2017 after being disciplined a third time for using excessive force. Personnel records show the sheriff hired him nine months later.

A year ago, Cure's family filed a federal lawsuit against Aldridge and then-Sheriff Jim Proctor in U.S. District Court, seeking $16 million. It accuses Aldridge of using excessive force and Proctor of ignoring the deputy's history of violence. Both have denied wrongdoing in court filings. The case is still pending in U.S. District Court.