Former sheriff’s office employee faces charges connected to 4 different incidents
A federal grand jury issued a 13-count indictment recently that accuses Camden County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Buck Aldridge of using the color of law to deprive people of their rights, then falsifying records to cover up his actions.
Aldridge has a history of excessive force complaints, including a well-publicized incident in late 2023 when he pulled over a man, Leonard Cure, who was released from prison not long beforehand after serving 16 years for a robbery he didn’t commit.
As the traffic stop unfolded, Aldridge shouted at Cure to exit his vehicle, which he did, though he reafused the command to put his hands behind his back. Aldridge shot Cure with a Taser, and Cure then tried to remove the Taser barbs before wrestling with Aldridge, putting his hands on Alridge’s face and neck. It was at that point when Aldridge shot and killed him.
“After reviewing the investigative case file in the above matter, I have concluded that under the totality of the circumstances, Deputy Aldridge’s use of deadly force was objectively reasonable,” District Attorney Keith Higgins wrote in a short memo to Stacy Carson, special agent in charge of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s Region 14. “The pursuit of criminal charges, therefore, is not warranted.”
The indictment leads off with an accusation Aldridge unlawfully tased and kicked a person Jan. 6, 2021, then covered it up.
Describing his use of force, Aldridge omitted, per the indictment, “any mention of (Aldridge) having kicked Victim 1; and in that, in purporting to describe the force used by (Aldridge) against Victim 1, it falsely stated that Victim 1 failed to comply with verbal commands before the Defendant discharged his Taser, when in fact, as the Defendant then well knew, the Defendant had not given Victim 1 any verbal commands before discharging his Taser.”
The indictment includes a second incident on Aug. 31, 2021, when Aldridge is accused of tasing a person in the back while they were handcuffed, then hitting the person in the neck with the Taser’s pistol grip.
With that accusation comes three counts of falsifying records.
In another confrontation, on June 24, 2022 in Glynn County, Aldridge allegedly punched a third person in the face “without legal justification,” then repeatedly tased them after they stopped resisting arrest.
On Aug. 26, the indictment details that Aldridge shot someone in the back of the head with a Taser, which was then omitted from his case report.
Attorney Ben Crump, one of the attorneys for the Cure family, led a news conference in Brunswick reacting to the indictment. The news conference was initially set for outside the federal courthouse, but moved to a nearby church.
“This day has been a long time coming,” Cure said.
Attorney Harry Daniels, also part of the Cure legal team, remarked on holding law enforcement accountable.
“Doesn’t matter if you are in law enforcement, accountability should be had, because that hurts the whole, that hurts the masses,” Daniels said. “Some people say back the blue — I understand that. But, at the same time, you’ve got to back the good blue, not the bad blue.”
The maximum penalties for Aldridge are no more than 10 years in prison for each of the five deprivation of rights counts, and no more than 20 years in prison for each of the eight record falsifying counts. Each of the 13 counts can have penalties of up to three years of supervised release.