CAMDEN COUNTY, Ga. – Georgia District Attorney Keith Higgins announced on Tuesday that criminal charges will not be filed against a Camden County deputy who shot and killed a 53-year-old man during a traffic stop in October 2023.
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“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,” a statement from Higgins read.
According to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Leonard Cure was pulled over by Staff Sergeant Buck Aldridge on Interstate 95 north in Camden County around 7:30 a.m.
GBI said Aldridge instructed Cure to get out of the car, and that he complied until he learned that he was under arrest.
The agency says that’s when Cure began to resist, and the deputy used his taser.
The Camden County Sheriff’s Office released body and dash cam footage on its YouTube page two days after the incident. (Viewer discretion is strongly advised.)
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Footage also shows Cure speeding on I-95 in a silver Ram truck going what the CCSO deputy who pulled him over said was over 100 miles per hour.
Cure’s death sparked national outrage in 2023 following the release of the dash camera video showing the incident as well as revelations that Aldridge was fired from a different Georgia police department in 2017 after throwing a woman to the ground during a traffic stop and handcuffing her.
His family filed a federal lawsuit in February 2024 against Aldridge who pulled the trigger seeking monetary damages in excess of $16 million.
Cure had spent more than 16 years in prison in Florida before being exonerated in a 2003 robbery.