Mississippi AG clears officer in fatal shooting of 1-year-old Kohen Wiley during Senatobia shoplifting call
Mississippi's attorney general ruled the use of force justified in the June shooting death of 1-year-old Kohen Wiley during a Walmart shoplifting call in Senatobia.
Mississippi AG rules officer justified in death of toddler Kohen Wiley
Mississippi's attorney general has concluded that a Senatobia police officer was justified in using lethal force during the June shooting that killed 1-year-old Kohen Wiley, abc7.com reports. The ruling closes the state's investigation into a case that drew national attention and sustained calls for justice in the small town roughly 40 miles south of Memphis, Tennessee.
The shooting took place in mid-June when Senatobia officers responded to a shoplifting complaint at a local Walmart. Officers observed Vellesiya Wiley — Kohen's mother — carrying her infant son as she and a friend left the store, entered a car and began driving away. Wiley and her friend are both Black. Police reports allege diapers and baby clothes were taken.
According to a statement from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation issued shortly after the incident, officers attempted to stop the vehicle. When the car moved in the direction of law enforcement, an officer opened fire, striking Kohen and his mother's friend.
Vellesiya Wiley rejected that account in a video released days after the shooting, denying that she or her companion had stolen anything and disputing that her friend, who was driving, moved toward the officers. Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represents Kohen's family, said results of a preliminary independent autopsy indicate the boy was shot from the side of the vehicle — not the front — contradicting officers' assertions that the car was headed toward them.
The case is the latest in a series of confrontations that have strained relations between the Senatobia Police Department and the city's Black residents. Last year, an officer pulled a Black woman from her car and arrested her with a Taser during a dispute over a disabled parking space in the same Walmart car park where Kohen was killed. Two years prior, an officer was dismissed after arresting a 10-year-old boy for urinating in public.
More recently, former Senatobia Police Chief Harold Vanderford was terminated by the city's board of aldermen following reporting by The New York Times, Mississippi Today and Verite News alleging he used racist slurs in private text messages.
Source: Google News MT — Crime (en)