Mother speaks out after exonerated son is killed by Georgia police

Leonard Cure’s mother held a photo of her son as she somberly addressed the crowd at a news conference Wednesday, two days after a Georgia deputy fatally shot Cure during a traffic stop.

“My heart is disconnected and my soul aches,” Mary Cure said during the event. 

Leonard Cure died Monday during an altercation with a Camden County sheriff’s deputy on Interstate 95 near the Georgia-Florida border. The death came three years after he served 16 years in prison for an armed robbery conviction he was exonerated of. 

The 53-year-old had been visiting his mother in Port St. Lucie, Florida, and was returning home in metro Atlanta. Mary Cure recalled the last conversation she had with her son early Monday morning, before they parted ways. 

“He said, ‘I love you and I’ll see you soon,’ that’s the last I heard from him,” she said. 

“I was uneasy every time he left, because I was like, ‘Will he get a traffic stop? Is he going to be a victim of that?’” the mother said. “From the time that he was released, he was never set free,” she continued. “Lived in constant fear … is this going to be the day that they’re gonna lock him up, beat him up, or kill him? I lived with that. That is torture.”

Camden County Sheriff’s Office released dashboard and body camera video showing the deputy pulling Cure over and ordering him to put his hands on the back of his pick-up truck and then behind his back. Cure appeared to comply until he learned that the deputy intended to arrest him for speeding and reckless driving, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the sheriff’s office. 

The deputy fired a stun gun at Cure and a fight ensued, with Cure grabbing the deputy by the neck and pushing his head backward, the video shows. The deputy shot the stun gun twice at Cure and hit him with a baton before shooting him with a gun at point-blank range. Cure’s family said the man’s time behind bars likely played a role in his deadly altercation with the deputy. 

“I believe there were possibly some issues going on, some mental issues with my brother,” Michael Cure told The Associated Press of his sibling. “I know him quite well. The officer just triggered him, undoubtedly triggered him. It was excitement met with excitement.”

Michael added of his brother: “He really should be alive. The officer hit him with his baton and he tased him, twice as a matter of fact. But he did not have to shoot him.”

The officer involved has been placed on administrative leave, a spokesman for the sheriff’s office told NBC News. When asked whether the office believes the shooting was justified, the spokesman said that will be determined by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. 

In 2020, Cure was the first person exonerated by Broward County’s Conviction Review Unit. He’d been wrongfully convicted of armed robbery and sentenced to life in prison in 2004. He was freed three years ago, after the Innocence Project of Florida, which supports wrongfully imprisoned people, convinced authorities to review the case. It was determined, through examining an ATM receipt and other evidence, that Cure could not have been involved in the act because he was miles away when the robbery occurred. The Broward County prosecutor’s office concluded that Cure did not commit the crime. 

Since being freed, Cure held down a job, reconnected with his family and was in the process of buying a home when he was killed, according to the Innocence Project. Seth Miller, executive director of the Innocence Project of Florida, said during the news conference that the psychological trauma of being unjustly incarcerated for 16 years may have prompted Cure to fear the arrest. 

“He, like many of my other clients, their biggest fear is that at a moment’s notice there’s going to be law enforcement on the other side of that front door or at a traffic stop who is going to — without cause, for something they didn’t do — send them back right where they worked so hard to get out of, and I can only imagine that must’ve been what he was thinking during this traffic stop,” Miller said during Wednesday’s news conference. 

“He was a good person who deserved to get home on Monday,” Miller said.