A 1-year-old boy is dead after police opened fire during a response to a shoplifting allegation at a Walmart in Senatobia, Mississippi, reopening wounds in a community already fractured by years of troubled encounters between law enforcement and Black residents.
Kohen Wiley was hit by gunfire on June 14 when officers attempted to stop a vehicle leaving the store. According to the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, the driver moved toward officers, prompting one to discharge a weapon. The boy's mother, Vellesiya Wiley, disputes both the account and the original shoplifting claim, saying in a video posted by civil rights attorney Ben Crump that her friend was driving away from police, not toward them, and that the diapers in question were paid for.
Kohen's mother and the driver, both Black, were struck by gunfire in the incident. The officer has been placed on administrative leave while investigators review what happened.
The death has drawn swift comparisons to other police shootings of Black Americans over minor offenses. In 2023, Ta'Kiya Young, who was pregnant, was fatally shot by police in Ohio after a similar attempt to stop her vehicle during a shoplifting response. Both mother and her unborn daughter were killed. The officer in that case was acquitted.
Criminal justice expert Ian Adams from the University of South Carolina said shooting into a moving vehicle violates modern policing standards. "Vehicles have other occupants, which is obviously a concern here," he said, noting that such tactics are "to be avoided at almost all costs."
The shooting has triggered immediate calls for accountability in Senatobia, a town of 8,000 where roughly 40 percent of residents are Black but only three Black aldermen have been elected since 1860. Bernice King, daughter of Martin Luther King Jr., posted on Instagram that the town was treating "items on a shelf as more valuable than a child." She called the shooting "not just bad policing" but "a moral collapse."
Kohen's death arrives as the latest in a troubling pattern. In May 2025, an officer threatened Breshari Faulkner with a Taser and arrested her over a handicapped parking space at the same Walmart lot. Two years earlier, a Senatobia officer was fired after arresting a 10-year-old Black boy for urinating in a nearby parking lot. That boy's family settled a federal lawsuit with the city.
Marquell Bridges, president of the Building Bridges Coalition advocacy group assisting the Wiley family, called Kohen's death "the breaking point" after years of systemic mistreatment. "There is a culture there that they are above the law, just because they wear a uniform," said civil rights attorney Carlos Moore, who has represented multiple victims of alleged departmental misconduct.
Police declined to comment on the shooting. The mayor and city aldermen did not respond to requests for statements. The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation promised to release video footage once its investigation concludes.
Kohen's grandmother, Veronica Roberson, described him as a happy child with "the prettiest smile you could ever imagine." She would sit with him outside while he pushed his toy lawnmower, watching bubbles float through the air. "That baby was my world," she said.
Author James Rodriguez: "A toddler is dead, and the response from city leadership is silence. That alone tells you everything about where accountability stands in Senatobia."
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