Police shooting of a 1-year-old Mississippi boy ignites tension between
police and Black residents
[June 19, 2026]
By TRAVIS LOLLER and SOPHIE BATES
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The fatal shooting of a 1-year-old boy by police
who were responding to a shoplifting call this week has ignited
simmering tensions between police and Black residents in the small town
of Senatobia, Mississippi.
The death of Kohen Wiley is the latest in a series of troubling
encounters with police that have outraged community members in recent
years. It has led to protests and calls for greater police
accountability in the town of 8,000, with some civil rights activists
pointing to Kohen's death as another example of a Black life lost over
something of nominal value — in this case, allegedly stolen diapers.
“We are treating items on a shelf as more valuable than a child,”
Bernice King, the daughter of civil right icon Martin Luther King, Jr.,
said in a statement posted to Instagram on Wednesday. “That is not just
bad policing; it is a moral collapse.”
Differing accounts of what happened
There are still many unanswered questions about the shooting and what
led up to it.
Senatobia police responded to the shoplifting call at a local Walmart on
Sunday, where they found two women and a child leaving the store,
getting into a car and driving away. According to a statement released
by the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation: “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, Vellesiya Wiley, said her son and her friend, who was
driving, were hit by gunfire. In a video posted on social media
Wednesday by civil rights attorney Ben Crump, Wiley said her friend was
not driving toward the officers because they were “all on the right side
and she was driving towards the left.”
She also disputes the shoplifting claim, saying in the video that she
believes her friend paid for the diapers she was carrying.
Policing expert Ian Adams, who teaches criminal justice at the
University of South Carolina, said regardless of the circumstances, the
officer should not have fired at the car.
“Modern policing knows that shooting into a moving vehicle is a very bad
idea and one to be avoided at almost all costs,′ Adams said. For one
thing, ”vehicles have other occupants, which is obviously a concern here
in the current case.”
Shooting revives racial justice concerns
Kohen was Black, as are his mother and her friend, and the circumstances
leading to Kohen's death quickly drew comparisons to another Black
mother shot during a response to a shoplifting accusation.
In 2023, Ta’Kiya Young, who was pregnant, was shot by police in a
Columbus, Ohio, suburb, after they attempted to apprehend her. Police
said Young, who was also the mother of two young sons, got into her car
and accelerated in the direction of the officer who fired at her through
the windshield. Both Young and her unborn daughter were killed.
The officer in that case was acquitted of criminal charges and found
justified in his use of force by a review board.
The two deaths join a long list of other instances of Black Americans
dying in interactions with police after accusations of petty criminal
offenses. That list includes the murder of George Floyd in 2020, who was
killed after police responded to a call that he used a fake $20 bill at
a Minneapolis grocery store.
For some racial justice advocates, such cases serve as a constant
reminder of the consequences of systemic racism in law enforcement.
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This undated photo provided by Veronica Roberson in June 2026 shows
her granddaughter, Kohen Wiley, of Senatobia, Miss. (Veronica
Roberson via AP)
“In the name of ‘law and order,’ a child was killed and family was
shattered over items that could be restocked, written off, and
replaced,” King wrote on Instagram. “Our charge is clear: until the
sacredness of human life is the starting point of every police
encounter, we must demand changes in training and work unrelentingly
to reform policies around police accountability."
Tensions in Senatobia
Marquell Bridges, the president and founder of an advocacy group
called the Building Bridges Coalition and who has been helping the
Wiley family, said Kohen's death was “just the breaking point” after
years of problematic interactions between Black residents and
police.
Bridges pointed to an encounter last year in which an officer
threatened Breshari Faulkner with a Taser, pulled her from her car
onto the ground and arrested her during a confrontation over a
handicapped parking space in the same Walmart lot where Kohen was
shot.
Two years earlier, in 2023, a Senatobia officer was fired for his
role in arresting a 10-year-old Black boy who had urinated in a
different parking lot. The boy’s family settled a federal lawsuit
with the city earlier this year.
“There is a culture there that they are above the law – just because
they wear a uniform,” said civil rights attorney Carlos Moore, who
has represented the 10-year-old boy and others accusing the
department of misconduct.
Police did not respond to requests for comment from The Associated
Press. The mayor and city aldermen also did not respond to messages.
About 40% of the city’s population of approximately 8,300 is Black,
according to 2020 Census data. Police did not respond to questions
about the racial makeup of the department, but the mayor and a
majority of the Board of Alderman members are white. The city has
elected only three Black aldermen since it became a municipality in
1860, according to the Tate Record, a local newspaper.
A toy lawnmower that blows bubbles
The officer who shot Kohen and the woman driving the car he was in
has been placed on administrative leave, a standard practice, while
the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation looks into what happened.
They have promised to release video of the shooting once the
investigation is complete.
Kohen's grandmother, Veronica Roberson, was there when Kohen was
born and babysat him often. She described him as a happy little baby
with “the prettiest smile you could ever imagine.”
She said he was a sweet child and: “He just loved on me, and I loved
on him. We loved each other.”
One of his favorite toys was a little lawnmower that would blow
bubbles when pushed. Roberson would sit outside with him while he
played with it. “He really thought he was mowing my yard,” she said,
laughing a little at the memory. “That baby was my world."
___
Loller reported from Nashville, Tennessee. Jack Brook contributed
from New Orleans. Aaron Morrison contributed from New York City.
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