Mississippi AG says officer’s force was justified during shoplifting call in which boy was killed

Mississippi’s attorney general says a Senatobia police officer was justified in the use of force during a June shoplifting call that ended in the fatal shooting of a 1-year-old boy.

The conclusion of the state’s investigation into the shooting death of Kohen Wiley follows months of mourning and calls for justice, both nationally and in the small town about 40 miles (65 kilometers) south of Memphis, Tennessee, where the shooting took place.

The shooting occurred in mid-June as Senatobia officers responded to a shoplifting call at a local Walmart, where they saw Vellesiya Wiley, Kohen’s mother, carrying her son as she and a friend left the store, got into a car and began driving away. Wiley and her friend are both Black. Police reports indicate diapers and baby clothes were allegedly stolen.

According to a statement released shortly after the shooting by the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, officers attempted to stop the vehicle, but the car drove toward law enforcement, prompting an officer to fire into the car, striking Kohen and his mother’s friend.

In a video released days after the shooting, Vellesiya Wiley denied that she or her friend stole anything and disputed that her friend, who was driving, headed toward the officers. Ben Crump, a nationally renowned civil rights attorney who is representing Kohen’s family, has said results of a preliminary independent autopsy indicate Kohen was shot from the side of the car, not the front, contradicting officers’ claims that the car was heading toward them.

The shooting is the latest in a string of incidents that has eroded trust between the Senatobia police department and the city’s Black citizens.

Last year, a Senatobia officer threatened a Black woman with a Taser, pulling her from her car and onto the ground and arresting her during a confrontation over an accessible parking space in the same Walmart lot where Kohen was shot. Two years earlier, a Senatobia police officer was fired for arresting a Black 10-year-old for urinating in public.

More recently, former Senatobia Police Chief Harold Vanderford was fired by the city’s board of aldermen, after reporting by The New York Times, Mississippi Today and Verite News alleged he used racist slurs in private text messages.

Sophie Bates, The Associated Press