A man from Florida, Leonard Allan Curewho was exonerated after serving more than 16 years for a crime he did not commit, was shot and killed by an officer in Georgia during a traffic stop, according to a news release from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. The police have released the video.
Leonard Allan Cure, 53, died Monday after a Camden County sheriff’s deputy shot him; The officer has not been officially identified. Cure was exonerated in 2020 after being wrongly convicted of armed robbery and serve 16 years in prison.
The case is the latest in a series of police shootings of unarmed black men that have raised questions about race relations and the use of police force in the United States.
A lawyer
His family has hired civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who has won multimillion-dollar settlements for relatives of other people killed by police. Crump said at a news conference Wednesday that the officer had acted too aggressively.
The Camden County Sheriff’s Office said in an online post that the video was released due to rumors and misinformation, but did not provide further details.
A representative for the sheriff’s office did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment on Wednesday.
The Camden County Sheriff’s Office released three videos, one from the deputy’s body camera and two from his vehicle camera, showing the deputy He stopped Cure for speeding and immediately yelled at him to get out of the car.. The officer later told Cure on the video that Cure was driving 100 miles per hour (160 kilometers per hour) on Interstate 95 in southern Georgia.
Does not follow orders
In the altercation that lasted just under 3 minutes, Cure argues with the officer but complies with his orders to get out of the truck and put his hands on the tailgate, as the video shows.
Cure then fails to comply with orders to put his hands behind his back and the officer shoots him with a Taser stun gun, the video shows. At that moment, Cure and the officer fight each otherand both men grab each other by the face and neck, as the video shows.
Cure is heard saying, “Yes, bitch,” twice while the officer says “sit down” several times, the video shows.
Point blank
The agent He hits Cure with a baton and then fires a shot at point-blank range. with his service weapon and an explosion is heard, according to the video.
After telling Cure to “stay down” after he briefly struggled to sit up, the officer handcuffs Cure, face down on the asphalt, and begins rendering aid, as the video shows. Other uniformed personnel arrive and attempt to revive Cure with chest compressions, but her body is eventually loaded into an ambulance, as the video shows.
Cure’s family watched the video Wednesday at a Georgia Bureau of Investigation office with their attorney just before it was released by Camden County in southern Georgia.
At a press conference organized by the law firm of lawyers of Crump and posted online, Cure’s brother, Wallace Cure, said there was “absolutely no reason why my brother would be killed over a traffic stop.” They said Cure was driving to his Atlanta-area home from Florida after visiting his mother.
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Crump blamed the agent for act too aggressively from the beginning and possibly “trigger” Cure, who, according to the family, suffers emotional stress due to his years in prison.
“We don’t understand why there weren’t more attempts to de-escalate the situation,” Crump said.