With demands for justice, dozens of protesters gathered and mourned Saturday night at the scene where a 31-year-old Black man was killed by Lafayette, Louisiana, police in a hail of gunfire as he left.
‘Today I only ask for accountability. Do you know why? Because it was transparent what happened yesterday. It was a murder that took place, “said Ronald Haley, a lawyer representing the family of Trayford Pellerin, who died Friday night outside a Shell gas station in Lafayette.
Officers fired 11 bullets at Pellerin as he approached the gas station door with a knife in his hand, according to authorities. IN shocking video of the shooting that showed Pellerin walking away from police when he was dancing, causing fatigue, and Louisiana State Police are now investigating the incident.
Keeping signs emblazoned with “Black Lives Matter” and “No Justice No Peace,” protesters decided to assassinate Pellerin, demanding that the officers involved be prosecuted. Some in the crowd cheered as speakers took turns at the rally, which was organized by the NAACP and community activists.
“My family is hurting,” said one of Pellerin’s family through tears. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it. If anyone knows what happened then please have the personal courage to come out and share what you know. “
“We need answers … Nobody knows what happened,” she said.
At one point, the crowd roared unanimously: “I promise myself today is a new day in Lafayette, Louisiana, and until there is justice, there will be no peace.”
Police said they encountered Pellerin in the parking lot of a Circle K gas station in Lafayette, while responding to a report of a disturbance in which a man went with knives at 8 a.m. Friday. He left the parking lot when police tried to arrest him, instead walking half a mile to the Shell station, police said.
Witness Rickasha Montgomery, who filmed the shooting, said she saw Pellerin by getting to the police, and then continuing to walk away with what she thought was a knife in her hand. She said he was surrounded by six officers with guns drawn when he was shot and killed when he reached the door of the Shell station.
“When I heard the shooters, I could not hold my phone as I had first filmed,” she said The Daily Advertiser. ‘I feel scared about it. I’m traumatized. You are so used to hearing this, but I never thought I would experience it. ”
At least one cop fired his gun, and all officers involved have been placed on administrative leave, police said.
Pellerin’s sister, Treneca Trachelle Pellerin, paid tribute to her brother or sister over the weekend in a Facebook post, promising to get him right.
‘They did my brother wrong, but I promise that if it’s all I do, I’ll get justice for you. brother, I love you so much. and I am so angry and sad that you are gone, ”she wrote.
In a statement on Saturday, the ACLU ruled in favor of the shooting, which is the third that has involved a justice of the Lafayette police officer in just five weeks.
“Once again, video footage has recorded a horrific and deadly incident of police violence against a Black person who was brutally murdered before our eyes,” Alanah Odoms Hebert, executive director of the ACLU of Louisiana, said in a statement.
‘Although we need to know much more about what happened last night, we do know that it started with a routine’ disturbance ‘call and phone video of the scene clearly shows that Mr Pellerin is moving away – not towards – policemen, just to be tased and then brutally shot dead. Trayford Pellerin should be alive today. Instead, a family mourns and mourns a community. ”
Pellerin’s family works closely with civil rights lawyer Ben Crump, who has represented the families of several other high-profile victims of police brutality, including George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.
“We stand with Trayford’s family in demanding justice and transparency in the reckless shooting and tragic murder of this man,” Crump said in a statement. “We refuse to resolve this issue like so many others: quietly and without answers and justice.”
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