SENATOBIA, Miss.—Vellesiya Wiley summed up the life of her son, Kohen Kartier Wiley, in a sentence.
“ I watched my baby take his first breath, and I watched my baby take his last breath,” she said, speaking to the media at a press conference inside the sanctuary of Gospel Temple Church of God in Christ in Senatobia, Mississippi, on Monday morning.
Eight days earlier, a Senatobia police officer shot 1-year-old Kohen Wiley, killing him in his mother’s arms in a car outside the Senatobia Walmart. They were there responding to a call about the alleged shoplifting of a pack of diapers.
The emotionally charged press conference, led by nationally recognized civil-rights attorney Ben Crump, included a demand for law enforcement to immediately release any video capturing the shooting on June 14 in Senatobia, Mississippi.
The killing of Kohen Wiley, Crump asserted, was the consequence of the officer’s decision to discharge his weapon at a moving vehicle.
“Where is the policy on shooting at a moving car—when you know, you know, there is a baby in that vehicle? Most police departments across America train their officers not to shoot into a moving vehicle,” he said.
“The body cam footage can be released today,” said the Wiley’s family attorney, Van Turner. “We don’t have to wait six to nine months. They can release the body cam footage of the officers. … Walmart has cameras all throughout the parking lot. Walmart needs to do the right thing and release the video footage.”
“The truth is gonna come out at some point in time,” Turner said. “Let’s have the truth right now.”
‘He Was a Sweet Little Boy’
Standing onstage in Gospel Temple COGIC’s sanctuary, the parents of toddler Kohen Wiley, Vellesiya Wiley and Davion Williams, stood solemnly alongside Ben Crump, Van Turner, and around a dozen friends and relatives—some raising framed, collaged photos of the baby. Both of the child’s grandparents spoke about Kohen’s brutal loss of life and the continuing mental torment of the parents, especially Vellesiya.
“ My baby was so sweet,” said Kohen’s paternal grandmother, Lassandra Williams. “He was a sweet little boy. So loving and so caring, and his smile…”
She trailed off, visibly weeping.
“I will never forget hearing that I was having a grandson … I’m gonna miss him,” she continued. “They took away so much. Graduation, first day of school. So much they took away from us. That’s why we demand justice because it’s not right.”
Veronica Roberson, Kohen’s maternal grandmother, broke down remembering her slain grandchild.
“That baby meant everything to me. He’s all I had: my first and only grandchild,” she said. “I took his mother to the hospital to deliver him. And I named him … what these people took from us can never be replaced.”
On June 16, the Mississippi Department of Public Safety announced it had launched an investigation of the shooting and assigned five agents to conduct a thorough review of the incident that has yielded national attention. DPS announced that all video of the incident, including from the store as well as Senatobia Police body cameras, are in its possession and will not be released until its investigation is concluded and its findings are presented to the public.
“It’s important to us to interview witnesses without the threat of intimidation,” Mississippi Department of Public Safety Commissioner Sean Tindell said. “It’s important that we keep civility during this process so we can get to the bottom of it and analyze all the evidence and ultimately make it available to you all.
But in other cases across the country, body cam footage is frequently released immediately when it confirms law enforcement’s version of events.
Crump and about 100 in attendance on Monday morning pleaded loudly for justice for the family. From the dais, Crump probed a critical question concerning the position of the officer responsible for firing the deadly bullet into the vehicle where Kohen and two adults were, as the driver attempted to leave the parking lot while pursued by police officers. Law enforcement has alleged that the driver drove toward officers before one fired into the vehicle, but both Vellesiya Wiley and some witnesses have disputed that.
One of the two adults in the car remains in the hospital recovering from injuries in the shooting that included three or four gunshots. Whether the officer’s gun was fired in front of the car or from the side of it remains an outstanding question. Crump said the autopsy will show the entry and exit wounds to the baby’s body, and the video will reveal a “very important detail to understand how reckless and wanton this officer’s actions were,” he said.
“If it’s verified that the bullet entered the baby’s right side of the body and exited the left side of the baby’s body, then that means that the bullet came from the side (of the car). And how are you in harm’s way if the bullet is coming from the side?” he asked.
Crump said it was more reasonable in the confrontation for the officers to de-escalate by getting the license plate information of the vehicle rather than discharging a weapon over an alleged shoplifting charge involving a box of diapers.
“They were called over a box of diapers and a family now has to bury their baby,” said the civil rights attorney, who held up a box of diapers during the press conference. “You cannot put those two things next to each other and call it reasonable policing.”
He said an independent autopsy will be conducted to ensure that “the family gets the full story of what happened.”
“We’re here to stand for transparency, accountability and justice,” Crump repeated.
Last week, a public records request by Memphis Action 5 News identified Senatobia Police Department Sergeant Hunter Foster as one of the officers present at the police shooting of Kohen Kartier Wiley, a 1-year-old toddler. The documents did not identify who fired the weapon.
‘He Was Not a Juvenile’
In response to a question from Mississippi Free Press regarding attorneys’ efforts to examine the Senatobia Police incident report on the shooting, Crump said, “The most glaring thing that jumps out at you … is the fact that they said they observed two adults and a juvenile getting into the vehicle. That tells you they knew the baby was in the car.”
Indeed, Crump and the family were incensed over the Mississippi Department of Public Safety’s legalistic use of the term “juvenile” at all. In a statement about the shooting last week, the agency described Wiley as a “juvenile child fleeing.”
“He was a one-year-old infant baby. He was not a juvenile,” Crump cried to cheers from the audience. The term juvenile frequently applies to youth in court proceedings, both a term and a system that many states limit to a minimum age of no younger than 10-12 years old.
The family announced that a funeral for the child will be held on Saturday, June 27. Crump confirmed that the service will be open to the public and said additional details would be forthcoming.
The shooting has galvanized much of the community to demand and seek answers. Many also have complained of problematic community relations with the police over a period of several years, voiced vehemently in an organized rally outside of City Hall two days after the shooting.
“I hope and pray that the community keeps going forward” to address the tension with police, even after the furor over Kohen Wiley’s shooting dies down, said Gospel Temple Church of God in Christ’s pastor, Bishop Robert Earl Barber, a Senatobia resident since 1997. “There is concern, obviously, that over time, all of the sudden concerns will die down. So, hopefully the community will see this through.”
Follow the Mississippi Free Press’ coverage of Kohen Wiley and read past stories here.
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