SAVANNAH — A federal grand jury indicted a former southeast Georgia sheriff’s sergeant Thursday on civil rights charges, accusing him of using excessive force multiple times and writing misleading reports to justify his behavior.
The 13-count indictment charges former Camden County Sheriff’s Office Staff Sgt. Buck William Aldridge, 42, with falsifying records and violating the rights of four people he arrested with excessive force.
Aldridge resigned Thursday after the Camden County Sheriff’s Office asked him to step down, sheriff’s spokesman Dalton Vurnakes said.
Aldridge fatally shot 53-year old Leonard Cure, a Black man, in October 2023, The Associated Press previously reported. The indictment does not mention Cure.
District Attorney Keith Higgins in February declined to charge Aldridge for fatally shooting Cure, saying body-camera video and other evidence indicated it was reasonable for Aldridge to use deadly force.
The Cure family filed a federal lawsuit in 2024 against Aldridge and former Camden County Sheriff Jim Proctor in U.S. District Court, seeking $16 million.
“I think it helps our case tremendously considering it shows he had this propensity for excessive use of force and a propensity to lie about it on his reports,” Harry Daniels, the family’s lawyer, said of the indictment.
The indictment accuses Aldridge of unjustifiably tasing and kicking someone in January 2021, injuring them. In August 2021, it says, he unjustifiably tased a second victim in the in the back and compressed their neck using the pistol grip of a taser while they were handcuffed, also injuring them, and unjustifiably tased a victim in the back of the head in August 2023.
The indictment also says Aldridge unjustifiably tased and hurt a victim during a June 2022 arrest and punched them in the face, which was previously reported by the AP.
Aldridge left out details of his violent conduct in reports, the indictment says, including that he kicked a victim and punched another. The indictment says Aldridge tried to “cover up” that he struck a victim in the back of the head with a taser. He also falsely wrote that a victim ignored verbal commands and falsely reported that during the August 2021 occurrence, the victim ran away and he tried to use other force to control them before deploying a taser.
Aldridge reported that on Aug. 31, 2021, he was dispatched to a pickup truck that had been in a wreck on Interstate 95, and witnesses had reported seeing it weaving in the road, according to records previously obtained by the AP. His incident report said the driver had methamphetamine.
Aldridge wrote that at one point that the driver appeared to put something in his mouth and began to run.
“He started pulling away from me saying he did not have anything. I cycled my Taser using the drive stun function into Mr. (name redacted)’s back. Mr. (redacted) dropped to the ground and became compliant. He later stated he ate two 5 mg hydrocodone, which he had hidden in his sock. Mr. (redacted) began defecating on himself.”
Aldridge was hired by the Camden County Sheriff’s office nine months after he was fired from another law enforcement job in 2017 after he threw a woman to the ground and handcuffed her during a traffic stop.
At the Kinsgland Police Department, Aldridge, a former U.S. Marine, was disciplined for using unnecessary force two other times before he was fired.
Aldridge disclosed the firing to the Camden County Sheriff’s Department, which hired him anyway. Advocates called it a part of a pattern where former Camden County Sheriff Jim Proctor let unnecessary violence slide without consequences. Several Camden County deputies have been indicted on felony charges and fired for violence.
“Finally, justice for some of these people that have been deprived of their civil rights at the hands of Buck Aldridge,” Camden County NAACP president Timothy Bessent said of the indictment.
Bessent said he is disappointed that Cure wasn’t mentioned in the indictment. But he said he was glad to see federal prosecutors willing to hold Aldridge accountable for what he said was a pattern of dangerous behavior that should have stopped the Camden County Sheriff’s Office from hiring him in the first place.
“The Camden County Sheriff’s Office is committed to transparency and accountability at every level,” current Camden County Sheriff Kevin Chaney said in a statement. “Our duty is to serve the citizens of Camden County with integrity and professionalism.”
The FBI in Brunswick is investigating the case against Aldridge.
Adrienne Browning, an attorney for Aldridge when Georgia authorities investigated Cure’s death, did not immediately return a phone message or email Thursday. Court records did not list an attorney for Aldridge in the federal case.
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Associated Press writer Russ Bynum contributed to this report from Savannah.
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Kramon is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
