Authorities have released body cam footage that shows the moment Leonard Cure got into a scuffle with a police officer during a traffic stop and then was fatally shot.
Cure, 53 was stopped by an officer on Monday while driving on interstate 95. According to NBC, Cure was pulled over because he was allegedly speeding over 90 miles per hour. Cure was released from a Florida prison three years ago after being wrongly incarcerated for a drug store arrest in Broward County in 2003. The graphic footage from the Camden County sheriff shows the moments when the deputy left his patrol cruiser and began shouting.
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“Step out!” the deputy yells. “Get out! Get out! Put your damn hands back here.”
The two began to exchange words and Cure went to the back of his truck and put his hands on the back of the pickup prior to the deputy telling him he would tase him for speeding and reckless driving. That’s when Cure and deputy had a scuffle and Cure ended up on the ground and was fatally shot. Civil rights attorney Ben Crump said the family wants to see more video of a live stream they say Cure started when he was initially pulled over. “We want to see if they, in any way, had reasons to fear for their lives, where they had to use deadly force. The family is not convinced that you’re going to see that,” said Crump.
Leonard Cure tried to make up for the 16 years he lost imprisoned in Florida after being wrongfully convicted of armed robbery in 2004. Since being freed three years ago, he gave inspirational talks to high school students, worked a security job and, in middle age, was considering college after buying a home.
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Seth Miller, executive director of the Innocence Project of Florida, who worked to help Cure win freedom, said he’s seen dozens of exonerated clients grapple with “an overarching fear that at any moment the cops are going to come” and take them back to jail or prison.
“That’s the context that people need to understand when they view any situation like this: You have a perfectly wonderful person who has a wrongful incarceration in their past and how that might contribute,” Miller said. “It is a tragedy all around.”
“Lenny was a good soul, cared about people,” Miller said. “He was getting his life back together.”
