Camden Sheriff's Office Sued For 16 Million After This Encounter That Lead To The Shooting Death Of A Man Who Was Previously Wrongfully Convicted Of Robbery

Lawyers for a man killed by a Camden County Sheriff’s Office deputy during a traffic stop for speeding in October have announced plans to sue for $16 million.

The number was not set arbitrarily, lawyers for the family of Leonard Cure said during a press conference Tuesday at the Camden County Courthouse in Woodbine.

Civil Rights lawyer Ben Crump talked briefly about Cure being freed in 2020 from a Florida prison after being wrongfully convicted of robbery. He was awarded more than $900,000 by the Florida legislature after his conviction was overturned.

The $16 million represents $1 million for every year Cure spent in prison, along with the minimum number of years he would have expected to live. Cure would have celebrated his 54th birthday on Thanksgiving.

Crump said Cure’s family is “heartbroken” over the shooting death on Oct. 16 after Deputy Buck Aldridge’s traffic stop. Aldridge pulled Cure’s vehicle over for allegedly speeding more than 100 mph.

Crump said the sheriff’s office had “plenty of notice about the propensity for this officer to use excessive force.”

Lawyer Harry Daniels, who is part of the legal team representing Cure’s family, described Aldridge as a “rogue officer who was taking a person to jail instead of giving him a speeding ticket.”

Daniels said it wasn’t the first time Aldridge’s use of excessive force cost him his job. Daniels said Aldridge was fired by the Kingsland Police Department in 2017 after he threw a woman on the ground before handcuffing her.

Daniels said another incident in 2022 also has been reported to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation involving Aldridge during a traffic stop where he allegedly struck an unarmed 17-year-old man in the face while he was lying on his back and not resisting before repeatedly tasing him, Daniels said.