CAMDEN COUNTY, Ga. — First Coast News Crime Analyst Mark Baughman has decades of law enforcement experience. He took a look at footage of the traffic stop which ended in Sgt. Buck Aldridge shooting Leonard Cure, a Georgia man who was previously wrongfully incarcerated for 16 years.
He said in this case, he believes Cure could have walked away alive if only both men had stayed calm.
Aldridge fatally shot Cure during a traffic stop on I-95 Monday morning when he tried to arrest him for reckless driving. A spokesperson for the Camden County Sheriff’s Office said Cure was driving over 90 miles per hour in a 70 miles per hour zone.
Baughman said from getting out of his patrol car without back-up, to yelling aggressively at cure, Aldridge could have behaved differently and should have de-escalated the situation.
Cure had been wrongfully convicted of a robbery and imprisoned for 16 years in Florida. He cooperated up until one pivotal moment: when Aldridge told him he was under arrest.
"It falls apart right when he says, 'You're going to jail.' He knows nothing about Cure," Baughman said. "Cure's done 16 years in prison wrongfully, so he's going to have an issue with law enforcement anyway and authority. He's already been wronged once for 16 years."
Records show the Kingsland Police Department fired Aldridge in 2017 for violating their use of force policy during a traffic stop. He’d also previously been suspended without pay from the agency.
The Camden County Sheriff's Office was aware when they hired him the next year because he disclosed it in his application.
"You got a guy who has an authority complex,” Baughman said. “You got a guy who doesn't trust authority for a really good reason, right? So here we are. It's a recipe for disaster, these two meeting each other."
Baughman said the way Aldridge gets out of his patrol car, aggressively yelling at Cure sets the tone.
“He used verbal commands, poorly, but he did use them," Baughman said. "He uses the taser, less than lethal. It doesn't work. He tries to get his ASP out, but he's not really in a position to neutralize the threat and now he's to the point where he's got somebody holding him by the throat, crushing maybe his windpipe and now he's extracting a round and firing it."
He believes that's why the district attorney's office will rule the shooting justified and won't file criminal charges.
Baughman said it doesn't end there, especially with civil rights Attorney Ben Crump representing the Cure family.
"If you look at it from the civil aspect of it, it's a lot different,” Baughman said. “What's your training? Did you stay within your policy?"
Aldridge is on administrative leave during the investigation.