A preliminary autopsy review shows the bullet a police officer fired that killed 1-year-old Kohen Wiley entered from the right side of his chest and exited from the left side of his chest. Wiley’s lawyers said today that the autopsy is evidence that the officer shot the 1-year-old child from the side, not head-on.
The angle is significant because law enforcement alleged after the shooting that the officer fired after “the driver drove in the direction of the officers, almost striking one.”
Dr. Roger Mitchell, a board-certified forensic pathologist, performed the autopsy, dated June 24. Attorney Ben Crump produced the preliminary reports of the autopsy at a July 1 press conference at the Senatobia Church of Christ.
“ There was a better way to handle this situation had Walmart and had the Senatobia Police Department released the video,” Attorney Van Turner said. “Because then we would’ve known the trajectory of the shot. We would’ve been able to fill in all of these details that we’re trying to fill in now.”
A Mississippi police officer who has yet to be formally identified shot Wiley outside a Senatobia Walmart while responding to a shoplifting call. Wiley was in his mother’s arms in the front passenger seat of the car when the shooting occurred.
The telltale sign that Kohen Wiley was shot from the right side, Crump said, was visible in the “pseudo-stippling” on the child’s body.
“Normal stippling, also called powder tattooing, is a pattern of multiple very small puncture abrasions, contusions, and/or tiny hemorrhaged skin injuries around a gunshot injury wound caused by unburned gunpowder particles striking and embedding in the skin during a close-to-intermediate-range firearm discharge,” he said, quoting Mitchell’s report.
The attorney shared diagrams of the bullet entry wound and exit wound at the press event. Pictures of Wiley’s body, too, were shown, depicting closed bullet wounds and, critically, multiple black spots just beneath the bullet wound on the right side of Wiley’s torso. The Mississippi Free Press has opted not to publish these photos.
“Pseudo-stippling is a stippling-like injury pattern produced by materials other than gunpowder, most notably expelled glass fragments when a bullet passes through glass as an intermediate target,” Crump said. Those injuries could have come from the fragments of shattered glass of the window on Kohen Wiley’s right side.
The preliminary autopsy went further, confirming not just the entry and exit wounds but also the general direction of the shots fired, the civil rights attorney added.
“ In fact, the pattern of pseudo-stippling supports the bullet that entered the infant first fragmented the tempered glass on the side window glass versus the laminated windshield glass,” Crump concluded.
If the preliminary findings are confirmed, it would mean the shot that killed Wiley was fired from the side of the car, not in front of it, challenging the narrative that the officer who shot and killed Wiley might have done so in fear for his life.
“ God help them if it’s not a life-or-death situation and you shot into a moving vehicle with an infant baby,” Crump said. “How do you justify that?”
Ultimately, the precise course of events is visible on numerous forms of recordings, from bodycams and dashcams to overlooking surveillance footage, none of which have been released as of July 1. Public Safety Commissioner Sean Tindell told the media last month that no footage would be released once the investigation was complete, which could take the better part of a year.
“They were going to stonewall us for nine months. Have us guessing for nine months,” Turner said.
Follow the Mississippi Free Press’ coverage of Kohen Wiley’s death and read past stories here.
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