A Georgia sheriff planned to release video Wednesday of a traffic stop in which a deputy fatally shot a Black man who had previously been wrongfully imprisoned for 16 years.
Camden County Sheriff Jim Proctor's office said in a statement that it planned to post body camera and dash camera video online at 4 p.m. showing the stop that left 53-year-old Leonard Cure dead.
Cure's mother and siblings arrived at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation's local office with their attorney, civil rights lawyer Benjamin Crump, to view the video before its public release. The family deserves answers, Crump told reporters earlier at a news conference outside the Camden County courthouse.
“I don’t feel, no matter what happened, that he should have been killed," Mary Cure said as she grasped a large, framed portrait of her slain son. "That’s the bottom line. His life should not have been taken.”
Cure was wrongfully convicted of armed robbery in 2004 and spent time in a Florida prison before he was released three years ago.
The Innocence Project of Florida persuaded a case review unit of the Broward County prosecutor's office to take a look at his case. That unit examined an ATM receipt and other evidence that Cure was miles away from the robbery. A judge vacated his conviction in 2020.
A sheriff's deputy pulled Cure over Monday along Interstate 95, a few miles north of the Georgia-Florida line. Authorities say Cure had been speeding, driving faster than 90 mph (145 kph), and faced a reckless driving arrest.
Citing preliminary information, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said in a news release Monday that Cure, who was Black, complied with the deputy until he was told he was under arrest.
After the deputy used a stun gun on Cure when he didn't obey the deputy's commands, Cure assaulted the deputy, the bureau said. The deputy then used the stun gun a second time, along with a baton, before pulling out his firearm and shooting Cure.
Seth Miller, executive director of the Innocence of Project of Florida, said Wednesday many people wrongfully sent to prison live in fear of being arrested and incarcerated again long after they are freed. Miller said that may have played a role in Cure’s traffic stop.
“It’s hard for us to understand how he could not be subdued without taking lethal force,” Miller said. “We look forward to seeing the video and making our own judgments then.”
