A police officer has been placed on administrative leave after shooting and killing a 1-year-old Black child outside a Walmart store in Senatobia, Mississippi, this past weekend, city officials said.
Protesters gathered near the retail store on Tuesday to condemn the police-involved shooting and demand answers about the incident, which occurred on Sunday. Officers responded to the demonstration by deploying tear gas, WMC Action News 5, a local NBC affiliate, reported.
According to the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, police were called to a Walmart in response to a report of alleged shoplifting. Upon arrival, the officers encountered two people and a child who were leaving the store and getting into a vehicle.
The MBI said that police then attempted to stop the vehicle, but that it drove toward them and nearly hit an officer. One officer opened fire on the vehicle, killing 1-year-old Kohen Wiley and critically injuring an adult inside the car.
Kohen’s mother, Vellesiya Wiley, who was a passenger in the vehicle, disputed the MBI’s claims in a video that her attorney shared on Wednesday.
“They was all on the right side, and she was driving towards the left,” Wiley said regarding allegations that the driver, who was her friend, was heading in officers’ direction. She also noted that camera footage at self-checkout would disprove allegations of shoplifting.
Wiley said she tried to show the officers that there was a baby in the vehicle before the shooting started.
“By the time I sat my baby back down, it was like three to four shots,” Wiley said. “One of the shots hit him in his ribcage, and the other shots hit [the driver] in her arm and her thigh.”
AP Photo/George Walker IV, file
Wiley’s family has now retained prominent civil rights attorney Ben Crump to represent them.
“A 1-year-old child is dead because police officers in Mississippi opened fire on a car in a crowded Walmart parking lot,” Crump said in a statement. “Kohen Wiley was a baby. His mother, who has not been charged with any crime, says she was trying to communicate to officers that there was a baby in the car. They fired anyway, leading to the death of an innocent 1-year-old. We intend to seek justice for baby Kohen and the life that was stolen from him.”
Wiley’s family members have raised questions about the police’s use of force and called for the release of body-camera footage. Protesters have also denounced the shooting and the disproportionate use of police violence against Black Americans.
“Policeman shot, opened fire in a public setting, over allegedly some Pampers,” Licole Wiley, Kohen’s grandmother, told WMC Action News 5. “Whatever the incident may have come to, it still didn’t need for you to shoot two adults and a baby that was not even a threat to you.”
Mississippi Department of Public Safety Commissioner Sean Tindell said Tuesday that video won’t be disclosed until the state’s independent investigation is completed.
“We want a transparent investigation. We want a thorough investigation, and we want to make sure there is no chance of any type of cover-up,” Wiley’s attorney Van Turner, who is assisting Crump in the case, told local affiliate ABC24.