A Georgia deputy fatally shot Leonard Cure during a traffic stop near the Florida-Georgia line Monday. Two days later, the footage of the encounter — which shows Cure complying, followed by an officer tasing him — has been released.

Cure had only spent a few years free from prison, after being exonerated in 2020 for an armed robbery he did not commit. The 53-year-old Black man had served 16 years of a life sentence. He was the first person exonerated by the Broward County State Attorney’s Office’s Conviction Review Unit in its history.

“Lenny was doing well and aspired to attend college for music production and start a career in the music business,” a statement released by the Innocence Project of Florida, which represented Cure during the investigation that led to his release, said. “Sadly, his life was tragically cut short today.” The statement says Cure was on his way home after visiting his mother.

Body and dash-cam footage released by the Sheriff’s office shows cars zooming by the two-minute encounter.

A Camden County Deputy pulled Cure over on Interstate 95 Monday morning and asked him to exit the vehicle. He ordered Cure to place his hands on the truck and explained Cure was under arrest for speeding and reckless driving. Cure complies and the deputy tases him. The two then engage in a struggle wherein the deputy strikes Cure with his baton. Both men fall to the ground but only the deputy gets back up.

He yells at Cure to stay down and radios for help, stating, “Deputy, shots fired.”

In a news conference Wednesday Cure’s mother, Mary Cure, said she knew Leonard had been killed before the officers who came to her door Monday even spoke. She’d not yet seen the footage.

“From the time he was released he was never set free. I lived in constant fear,” she said, one hand gripping a photo of her son.

Cure’s brother Michael stood with other family members and the family’s attorney, Ben Crump, along with attorney Seth Miller, who is the Executive Director of Innocence Project of Florida.

Wrongful conviction and incarceration have a lasting psychological impact on exonerees, who often struggle with PTSD, depression and anxiety, Crump pointed out.

“There is a trauma that comes with the miscarriage of justice of being wrongfully convicted and wrongfully incarcerated and that is a trauma that is carried with an exonerated person every day of their life.” Miller said.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) announced in a statement about the shooting that it is conducting an independent investigation, their 80th investigation of an officer-involved shooting this year. The bureau will turn its findings over to Brunswick Judicial Circuit district attorney’s office for review.

The Georgia deputy has been placed on administrative leave, according to the Sheriff’s Office. They have not yet released the deputy’s name.

Cure’s death coincides with urgent calls for police reform and abolition in Georgia and Florida, where Black people are killed by police at some of the highest rates in the country. Black motorists are 20% more likely to be stopped by police.