The Leonard Allen Cure Shooting

After seeing both the dash cam footage and bodycam footage of the exchange between Leonard Allen Cure, the man shot, and Staff Sergeant Buck Aldridge of the Camden County Sherrif's Office in Georgia, there are several takeaways here.

If you have not followed the case, here is a brief breakdown of what occurred.

Deputy Aldridge was traveling along I-95 on routine patrol when he observed a pickup truck pass him at 100 miles per hour, after which Aldridge pursued him and turned on his lights and sirens. After a mile or two, Cure, the driver of the truck pulled over and Aldridge exited his patrol car and instructed Cure to exit the vehicle. Cure was uncooperative and combative, Aldridge called for backup and warned Cure he would be tased. Ultimately Cure was tased, which did not faze him, and a struggle ensued during which Cure was fatally shot.

With all due respect to the situation, that is a very condensed version of the events, however, still sums up essentially what happened. 

In the media there is a lot of focus and attention, and I think more than misguided, on police abusing authority, overstepping their bounds, or being otherwise thugs. It is always painted as the rule rather than the exception, and all cops are placed in a bad light as a result.

And I'll be honest with you. I happen to be a fan of 1st Amendment audit videos, and there are plenty of examples to be seen of bad cops. Or cops that do not fully grasp the law, which they are supposed to enforce, and even sometimes rely on an uneducated citizen to get things from them they are not technically legally able to.

I think the best course of action is usually to observe everything with an objective frame of mind and not draw conclusions right off the bat, which so many do. Especially the media. But of course, it is the media that drives the preconceived notions around interactions between cops and citizens.

Right off the bat I would have to say that I thought Deputy Aldridge was too quick to "take action," and it seemed he wanted to control a situation immediately that, at first glance, required no control. At the time of the stop, we simply had a man speeding, granted recklessly, in a truck. There was no real "pursuit," and no sign of evasion as Cure was driving in the far-left lane and it simply appeared he was trying to get over to the side of the highway, but other traffic was preventing him from doing so.

On the one hand, some people would say that Aldridge simply asked the man to exit his vehicle. Those would be the ones fully siding with law enforcement. But the video clearly shows that Deputy Aldridge yelled at Cure. 

"Step out. Step out! Get out!"

You can't hear if Cure is saying anything in the video to prompt the abrupt commands. But clearly one could easily observe that the situation was being immediately escalated. And perhaps unnecessarily so. It also seems clear that Deputy Aldridge, prior to exiting his patrol car, had already made the decision he was going to arrest the driver for reckless driving.

When Cure did exit his vehicle, he told Aldridge he, "wasn't doing shit."

Two problems come to mind in this scenario. We have perhaps a cop who is bit too aggressive, and we have a citizen who decides he does not like cops and will not be compliant.

But there is a side story to this. Cure was recently exonerated for a crime he did not commit that he spent 16 years in prison for. So, in that circumstance, it is understandable why a man like Cure might have a beef with the law. However, on the flip side, if Cure was truly a law-abiding citizen, he would act like one regardless of his situation. Especially having full understanding of why he was being stopped.

Leonard Allen Cure had to have known he was speeding.

And perhaps Cure's demeanor would have been different had Deputy Aldridge engaged him in a different manner from the beginning.

Maybe, maybe not. We can never know. But, to my mind, these are all important details to be observed when making a full and fair analysis of everything that happened leading up to Cure being fatally shot. And this is where the media fails as well, I think.

The way the media has largely chosen to portray this story is to emphasize the exoneration of an innocent man, and to also emphasize the aggressive demeanor of Deputy Aldridge—but to work very hard to paint one or the other in a better or more negative light.

They are trying to paint Cure as a victim, which, if you watch the video, it is easy to conclude was not a victim at all. What he was, was a man caught in a series of events that he very much contributed to, which ultimately led to his death.

Was Cure's shooting justified? In my opinion, yes. But again, you can't just draw that conclusion. You have to weigh in everything that happened to get there. Is speeding punishable by death? Not hardly. But Cure wasn't shot for speeding. He was shot for attacking an officer.

Even if you were to rightly accuse Deputy Aldridge of handling the stop poorly at the very start, and being overly aggressive, it did not justify Cure's actions nor his response. Aldridge immediately escalated the encounter. But just as easily Cure could have deescalated it by simply being compliant and cooperative. 

It is possible, and like before we can't know, that had Cure's demeanor been different, perhaps Deputy Aldridge would have brought his aggression down a notch.

The one thing I do know, and I think I can say with certainty, is that if Cure's actions would have been less aggressive and combative despite the behavior of Deputy Aldridge, Leonard Allen Cure would be alive right now.

Despite what the media tries to portray, Cure was the direct contributing factor in his being fatally shot. Deputy Aldridge is not responsible for shooting Cure. The shooting of Cure was the result of the further situation his actions alone put the deputy in.

Deputy Aldridge told Cure to step to the back of his vehicle and put his hands on the back of the truck. Cure did ultimately do this, but not without hesitation and an exchange. When the deputy tried to arrest him, Cure further escalated the situation at which time he was tased.

Even being tased, Cure still did not comply, resisted the tasing, and went after the deputy at which time Deputy Aldridge had completely lost control of the situation. Cure had him, and he was winning, overpowering the deputy.

It is easy to understand that, in that moment, the deputy was in grave danger. And of course, Aldridge knew it. Just like Cure knew he had been speeding, Aldridge knew he was no longer in charge. Leonard Allen Cure was. It would not be at all of a stretch to conclude that Aldridge feared for his life and feared that Cure might potentially get control of his gun next and end the situation.

The only option left for Deputy Aldridge in that moment was to regain control of it. And in that moment the only choice was to draw his gun and shoot. I can't fault him for that. I don't think anyone can. And anyone in that same situation likely would have made exactly the same decision.

It was him or Cure, and that was that. It is also clear that Aldridge had no intent to kill him. He simply wanted to end the attack and potentially save his own life. And clearly you can see in the video that Aldridge had no way to aim in any particular way—he was under siege. He shot wherever he could point the gun and the shot turned out to be a fatal one.

What else is noted in this exchange is how shook-up Deputy Aldridge was. Not only about the attack itself. But the shooting. And that's another aspect of these kinds of incidents that don't really get touched upon by the media. 

If you have a conscience, and most people do, it hurts to take a life. 

I would imagine that even in situations where taking a life is a matter of survival, it still doesn't feel good. And while Aldridge didn't outright say it, it was clear he was angrier with Cure for leaving him no choice but to act as he did than about the attack itself.

I think, for me, there has to be a better connection between law enforcement and citizens. From all walks of life. And for all walks of life. There has to be a human element that is present on both sides. An understanding that not all citizens who encounter the police are immediately bad or that all cops are either. 

Had Aldridge approached this stop differently from the beginning the same result may have occurred. But it also can be said that Aldridge's immediate response to the stop had as much to do with the result as Cure's reaction did.

Clearly the victim, if there is one, in this case is the deputy. He reacted as he did, appropriately, given the options presented to him. Even he shares some blame in the outcome, he will likely bear the burden of persecution simply because he's a cop and he killed someone in the line of duty.

And the media will of course do what it always does. Emphasize the falsely accused man who was killed and paint him as more of a model citizen than he actually was. The media did go to great lengths to do much research on the cop. They dug into his past and found evidence of other instances where he used excessive force or was fired for it.

How much research did they do to find out what Cure was doing prior to his false arrest that had him on the radar, at least, by the police? What was Cure's past criminality? It's not like we won't know about it. Just like in the case of George Floyd who had a very checkered past that was very bad. 

As I always say about things like this, there are so many lessons to be learned by them. Lessons that get lost in the politics and the innuendo and preconceived ideas based on narratives we want to find within these stories that fit broader narratives some people prefer to push.

How do we stop things like this from happening? Maybe we simply can't. That may be an idea as silly as Utopia. But we can gain understanding. And with some of that understanding applied to similar situations in the future, by both the police and the citizens who find themselves in interactions with them, perhaps some outcomes can be changed.

We just have to want to see the bigger picture and absorb all the details that matter. We want to try to put ourselves in each other's shoes and not immediately assume one side or the other has ill intent.

Both of these men, on that fateful day, played a role in what ultimately happened. And we have to be fair about that. In this case we can conclude that there was a true villain, though. And that villain was Leonard Allen Cure. Even if we can also conclude that Deputy Alridge may have planted the seed. Cure was the one who ultimately watered it.

Part 1 of dash cam footage.
Part 2 of dash cam footage.
Body cam footage.
***Disclaimer: Some audience members may find the footage of this incident disturbing. Viewer discretion is advised.

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