When Vellesiya Wiley saw Senatobia police officers draw guns and point them toward the car where she was riding in the passenger seat with her 1-year-old son, Kohen Wiley, she says she lifted the child up to show them he was with her. Moments later, an officer who had arrived in response to a shoplifting allegation opened fire, killing the toddler outside the small Mississippi town’s Walmart on June 14.

Vellesiya Wiley recounted the story in a video that civil rights attorney Ben Crump’s law firm, which is representing the family, shared with the media on Wednesday. After the child’s death, law enforcement claimed the officer fired because the driver was driving toward the officers. In her video though, the grieving mother disputes that account.

“It was me, my son and another friend of mine at Walmart. We were leaving out the Walmart and they tried to stop us, but I kept walking because it had nothing to do with me,” she says in the video. “By the time me and my baby got in the car, she came, and then when we were backing up, they were running at the car. I raised my baby up, because they had drawn their guns—she had no tint—I raised my baby up trying to show them he was in the car. She was backing up and she hit a car as I was opening the door, so the door flew back in. By the time I set my baby down, it was like 3 to 4 shots. One of the shots hit him in the rib cage. And the other shots hit her arm and her thigh. And we left and went to Senatobia hospital, where he was pronounced dead at the scene.”

Vellesiya Wiley said that her friend was airlifted to another hospital and that her child’s body was taken to Jackson for an autopsy, but that the police told her she couldn’t leave the hospital, nor could she have visitors.

“But I ended up walking out and the crowd was questioning (the police), asking them what happened. And they were like, ‘She was shoplifting.’ … But they weren’t talking about me, they were talking about the driver,” she said.

Vellesiya Wiley said that her friend paid at the self-checkout, despite the allegations of theft, and that the cameras at the self-checkout would show “where she got the diapers and walked out.”

In a statement on the day of the shooting, the Mississippi Department of Public Safety said that the officers responding to the shoplifting call saw “two subjects and a juvenile child fleeing from the store into a vehicle” and that “officers attempted to stop the vehicle, but the driver drove in the direction of the officers, almost striking one.”

Vellesiya Wiley stridently denied police claims that her friend was trying to hit the officers when they shot into the car and killed Kohen Wiley.

“They tried to say that she forcefully was trying to drive and hit them, but they all was on the right side and she was driving towards the left. They just … purposefully shot in the car,” she said.

Photos of the car show shots through the passenger side windshield and show that the passenger side window was busted out during the shooting.

The police never charged Vellesyia Wiley with a crime, she said.

“They just let me go. They didn’t say nothing. They just kept telling the crowd, ‘They were shoplifting. They were shoplifting,” she said.

On Tuesday, MDPS Commissioner Sean Tindell said the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation is investigating the shooting, but will not release any videos—such as policy bodycam footage or Walmart security footage—until the investigation is complete.

That same day, DPS spokesperson Bailey Martin confirmed to the Mississippi Free Press that no arrests had been made of any party thus far.

As hundreds protested in the city on Tuesday, law enforcement released tear gas on a group of protesters outside the Walmart where the shooting had happened days earlier. That same evening, the City of Senatobia placed the officer who fired the shots on administrative leave. Officials have not publicly identified the officer by name.

Follow the Mississippi Free Press’ coverage of Kohen Wiley’s death and read past stories here.

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Award-winning News Editor Ashton Pittman, a native of the South Mississippi Pine Belt, studied journalism and political science at the University of Southern Mississippi. Previously the state reporter at the Jackson Free Press, he drove national headlines and conversations with award-winning reporting about segregation academies. He has won numerous awards, including Outstanding New Journalist in the South, for his work covering immigration raids, abortion battles and even former Gov. Phil Bryant’s unusual work with “The Bad Boys of Brexit" at the Jackson Free Press. In 2021, as a Mississippi Free Press reporter, he was named the Diamond Journalist of the Year for seven southern U.S. states in the Society of Professional Journalists Diamond Awards. A trained photojournalist, Ashton lives in South Mississippi with his husband, William, and their two pit bulls, Dorothy and Dru.