Leonard Allan Cure spent more than 16 years imprisoned in Florida on a wrongful conviction, fighting relentlessly for his release before he was finally freed three years ago. On Monday, he was killed by a Georgia sheriff during a traffic stop on his way home from visiting his mother.
Cure, who was Black, was pulled over in Camden County near the Florida border by a sheriff’s deputy at about 7:30 a.m., according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. The agency is conducting an independent probe into the fatal shooting by the officer.
“It is god awful that he would escape that injustice to have his life claimed by more bias,” civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is representing Cure’s family, said at a Wednesday news conference.
“Just because you’re Black should not be the determining factor whether you get a death sentence for a traffic stop,” he added.
In an email to NPR, Bruce said that Cure was stopped after being clocked on radar driving at 90 mph in a 70 mph zone and then accelerating to more than 100 mph.