Family of Baby Killed by Police Fire Presents New Evidence

A Mississippi family whose baby was killed after police fired into their moving car offered new evidence they claim challenges the officers’ account they were in danger and needed to open fire.

A second autopsy of 1-year-old Kohen Wiley, requested by the family, proved the baby was shot from the side of the car, not the front, civil rights attorney Ben Crump said.

“We are here because the lack of transparency, and we’re going to try to continue to demand transparency,” Crump said from the pulpit of Senatobia Church of Christ, surrounded by more than a dozen people, including the baby's grandparents, some of them holding “Justice for Baby Kohen” signs.

The June 14 shooting sparked outrage among community members, resulting in protests in the small town of Senatobia, where residents point to a string of troubling encounters with police in recent years.

Crump said the child was killed after police were responding to a call about diapers that may have been shoplifted from a Walmart.

On display behind Crump were photos of Wiley's body provided to the family-retained pathologist and a photo of the vehicle with the passenger window shattered and what an apparent bullet hole in the windshield on the passenger side.

“They (the officers) reported they witnessed two adults and this child getting into the vehicle but yet he saw fit to shoot into a moving vehicle when he knew a baby was there,” Crump said. The woman was critically wounded, authorities have said.

“They want us to believe that it was a life-or-death situation,” he added. “They told us that, but they have not showed us that.”

The family is demanding that police body camera and dashcam video, as well as Walmart surveillance video, be made public.

A spokesperson for the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, which is handling the inquiry, declined to comment Wednesday, saying in an email that the case remains an open and ongoing investigation.

In an initial account of the shooting, state investigators said, “Officers attempted to stop the vehicle, but the driver drove in the direction of the officers, almost striking one. An officer then discharged their weapon and the vehicle fled the scene.”

Kohen’s mother has said she believes her friend paid for the diapers. The killing has drawn comparisons to other instances of other Black people who lost their life in cases of accusations of petty criminal offenses, such as the murder of George Floyd.