Two months after the state of Florida formally apologized to Leonard Cure for the 16 years he lost following a wrongful conviction for armed robbery, authorities say he was fatally shot Monday by a sheriff’s deputy during a traffic stop just across the state line in Georgia.
“He and his family deserved better,” the Innocence Project of Florida said in a statement. “Lenny’s life mattered.”
Cure’s quest to rebuild his life after being wrongfully convicted in 2003 ended tragically on the shoulder of Interstate 95 in South Georgia on Monday morning.
On Wednesday, the Camden County, Georgia, sheriff’s office released body-worn and dash camera videos of the moments leading up to the shooting.
In the dash cam video, the deputy begins pursuing Cure with his sirens on after Cure’s vehicle passes his. The pursuit lasts about one minute and 20 seconds.
Dude he was fighting the cop with his hands around the cop’s neck. The cop was doing 65+ when he passed. You can tell he was speeding. I get that going in for reckless driving may be traumatic for somebody with his history, but the cop doesn’t know that.
Someone of sound mind tries to be cooperative when pulled over. The guy was not that, and as all things happening in the heat of the moment, it quickly got out of control. How in the fuck was this a hit job?
Because he just got released from being wrongfully imprisoned, was driving while Black and was killed for it. Every cop in the nation knows who the hell he is. And racists and tyrants don't like those who escape their wicked claws.
Even under your interpretation of the situation, it's still wrong, as white people who do the same are rarely if ever killed for it while Black people are.
Most people will also not put their hands around the cop’s neck. You really believe the cop knew who he was immediately when he passed the cop doing at least 20 more mph than the cop was? I would never tell a cop “no I’m not” if he told me I’m going to jail for reckless driving. That’s not cooperating. I guess I’m a pussy
A white dude could literally have put his hands around that cop's neck and would have been arrested without being murdered.
It literally doesn't even matter what Mr. Cure did, that cop had no business pulling him over for any reason. Police doing literally anything to him for any reason, aside from Mr. Cure purposefully killing innocent people (cops are never innocent) is a purposeful attempt on his life because there's no way they would not have known who he was or wanted him to suffer for escaping their clutches.
Mr. Cure's murder was a message -- you will comply and submit to us doing anything we want to you and even if you legally manage to exercise your rights and escape, we will still come for you. There is no escape, bitch. Bend over.
That is what those cops hoped to accomplish and it sadly worked.
I would never tell a cop “no I’m not” if he told me I’m going to jail for reckless driving. That’s not cooperating. I guess I’m a pussy
You need to do some meditation and self-reflection and decide for yourself if existing in fear of other people's wrath is the way you want to live your life. Cops can't just do what they want to everybody and we the people have rights that supercede any authority cops claim to have. Nothing cops do is constitutional and you and I both know that. Cops are always monsters and never do anything good -- it is an immutable rule of the universe.
This wasn't even just "hands around the neck", he was actively choking the officer, who first tried the baton to get him off and then finally restored to the gun.
It's not a fucking hit job it was self-preservation in the face of a threat to his life.
If it's a message, maybe that message should be "don't try and guy with a gun to death, especially a cop"
What Mr. Cure did was irrelevant because if anything he did, including killing police officers, was done by a white dude, the white dude would have been arrested and still alive while Mr. Cure and any other Black man would have been murdered without hesitation.
It is that simple.
But we both know you're not listening because you're probably some racist ass who thinks it's okay for police to murder Black men, especially high-profile ones who expose the tyranny of their system.
No, you're just a racist idiot defending cops because they killed a Black man and you like that sort of thing.
Cops have literally just arrested and bought Burger King for white mass shooters before and you're justifying them murdering an innocent Black man who just escaped having 16 years of his life taken away from him by them, and you don't want me to sympathize with the Black victim but the white abuser.
I'm not defending cops at all. There are plenty of incidents of racist or corrupt pieces of shit who are trigger happy. This just isn't one of them.
The cops that put this guy in jail are garbage, ones that engage in the behaviour you described are garbage, this particular cop did none of that. As an adult, I can actually look at a situation and analyse that without being biased over a generalized hatred. You might want to work on that.
YOU seem to have looked at the summary, decided "black man, white cop" and that's all it took to render a decision of guilt without looking at the situation at-hand. Doubt you even watched the video but I doubt it would have affected your decision either way
Some people have a hard time believing this, but white people are sometimes killed by police too. The statistics are that black people are killed at a rate approximately twice as high as their occurrence in the population. Being white does NOT automatically mean you can get away with whatever you want and are never treated poorly by police.
Anyway my points is that people act like "if that person was black they 100% would have been killed" and "if that person was white they 100% would have gotten off with a warning and been bought a cheeseburger" but that isn't totally accurate.
It literally doesn't matter. Those numbers are so damn high it justifies bare minimum dismissal of any claims of innocent on a cop's part at face value.
The guy clearly had the upper hand on the cop and was dominating the cop. If you believe the cop had no threat to perceive based on that video, idk what to say.
I’ve seen plenty of other races getting shot for acting the same way. I’ve also seen black people get arrested after fighting. In the heat of the moment it’s hard to make rational decisions especially since your taser isn’t working on the person fighting you. I hope you’re never in that scenario.