Police in Louisiana have shot and killed a man on Saturday as he tried to enter a convenience store with a knife, the local authorities maintained. The incident was captured on camera by some people and the state American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) also condemned the attack and described it as a “horrific and deadly” attack against a black person.
Meanwhile, Louisiana’s police said in a statement that Lafayette Police Department’s officers were called to a store on late Friday about a disturbance involving a man with a knife. It further added that as the officers tried to apprehend the criminal, he left. In response, the officers deployed tear gas but said that they were ineffective.
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The state police said that the man, identified as 31-year-old Trayford Pellerin was still armed with a knife when he tried to enter another convenience store, which was occupied when he was shot dead. Later, Pellerin was taken to the hospital where he was declared dead. Local media also reported that no police officers were hurt or injured.
Louisiana’s police authorities maintained that they were asked by the Lafayette police department to handle the investigation. Meanwhile, the state’s ACLU demanded an investigation of the brutal killed and identified the victim as a black.
On Saturday, Alanah Odoms Hebert, the executive director of the organization said that once again that the video footage caught the deadly incident of police brutality against a black person. The statement further added that Pellerin was supposed to “be alive today”, instead a community is grieving, and a family is mourning.
Ben Crump, the lawyer representing the family of the deceased called his death tragic and the shooting as reckless. On Saturday, Crumps said in a statement that the officers involved in the shooting should be immediately dismissed from the service.
Meanwhile, the dead man’s mother, Michelle Pellerin said that her son was intelligent, shy, and had sought therapy for social anxiety. She said that Pellerin always became anxious and may have been frightened by the police officers. Earlier this year, he had sought help, Michelle said.
Her lawyer Crump maintained that instead of giving Pellerin a helping hand, police gave him bullets. Since mid-July, this is the third police-involving incident, last month the state police said that a man was critically wounded after being shot during an altercation with police. Earlier this month, another man was in stable condition after being shot by officers during a burglary investigation.
