Family Challenges Police Account in Mississippi Baby's Death

A Mississippi family whose 1-year-old child was killed when police fired into a moving car offered evidence on Wednesday that they say challenges the officers' account that they were in danger when one opened fire.

A second autopsy requested by the family of Kohen Wiley showed the baby was shot from the side of the car, not the front, civil rights attorney Ben Crump said. Wiley's mother, who is Black and was in the passenger seat, says her friend was driving away from the officers, while the officers initially said the car was heading toward them.

The June 14 shooting has outraged community members and prompted 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 called to a Walmart parking lot about diapers that may have been shoplifted.

“We are here because the lack of transparency, and we’re going to try to continue to demand transparency,” Crump said. He spoke 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.

On display 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.”