Source: Tetiana Kitura / Getty
Police brutality is a plague in America and Black Americans will never stop protesting and fighting for justice for those killed or abused by state agents. In the wake of the 2020 summer of protest, we have seen police officers be arrested, sentenced, and convicted of everything from murder to obstruction of justice, however, those isolated instances of justice should not be mistaken for change. There are still plenty police officers getting away scot free with violence and civil rights violations.
Leonard Cure was pulled over by a Camden County, Georgia sheriff’s deputy named Staff Sgt. Buck Aldridge in 2023. Three years prior to this traffic stop, Cure was exonerated released from a Florida prison after serving sixteen years for a crime that he didn’t commit. During their encounter Sgt. Aldridge and Cure got into a wrestling match that resulted in two taser discharges before a Aldridge fired fatal rounds from he service pistol.
Warning: The following video may be disturbing
According to new reporting by CBSNews, District Attorney Keith Higgins has come out publicly to say that he believes Sgt. Aldridge’s use of deadly force was completely justified and that no criminal charges will be filed against him.
“Use of deadly force at that point was objectively reasonable given that he was being overpowered at that time,”
Sufficed to say, this decision is not acceptable to Cure’s family nor their legal representative, ubiquitous civil rights attorney Ben Crump.
“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.”
In 2024, the Cure family filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Aldridge and then-Sheriff Jim Proctor accusing the former of excessive force and the latter of ignoring the deputy’s history of violence, they are seeking $16 million in damages.
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