Louisiana police shot and killed a man accused of wielding a knife at a store Friday night in Lafayette.
Officers from the Lafayette Police Department were called to a convenience store at 8 p.m. Friday about a man with a knife, the Louisiana State Police said.
Video of the incident shows 31-year-old Trayford Pellerin quickly walking away from police officers. People in the background of the video can be heard saying that the man has a knife.
When officers tried to apprehend him, he fled. State police said they initially tried to tase Pellerin, but it was ineffective.
Several cops closed in on him and at least 10 shots can be heard in the video. The state police said he was later pronounced dead at a hospital.
The ACLU of Louisiana called it “a horrific and deadly incident of police violence against a Black person who was brutally killed in front of our eyes.”
“None of our communities are safe when the police can murder people with impunity or when routine encounters escalate into deadly shooting sprees,” Alanah Odoms Hebert, executive director of the ACLU of Louisiana, said in a statement.
“The ACLU of Louisiana will continue to demand justice for this brutal killing and push for reforms that will end the epidemic of police violence once and for all.”
According to an ACLU report released this week, 10 people in Louisiana have been shot and killed by police in 2020.
