A one-year-old boy is dead, his mother was critically wounded, and the officer who pulled the trigger has not been publicly identified, all over a suspected diaper shoplifting call at a Walmart in Senatobia, Mississippi. Now a family-commissioned autopsy is challenging the official story that the officer faced a life-or-death threat when he fired into a moving car on June 14.
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump presented the preliminary autopsy findings at a press conference Wednesday inside the Senatobia Church of Christ, flanked by more than a dozen family members, including the baby's grandparents, some holding signs reading "Justice for Baby Kohen." The central claim: the bullet that killed Kohen Wiley entered his torso from the right side and exited the left, suggesting the shot came from beside the vehicle, not from the front.
That trajectory matters. State investigators with the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation released an initial account stating that the driver "drove in the direction of the officers, almost striking one" before "an officer then discharged their weapon and the vehicle fled the scene." If the car was bearing down on the officer, you would expect a shot from the front. The family's pathologist says the evidence points the other direction.
What happened in the Walmart parking lot
Officers responded to the Senatobia Walmart parking lot on June 14 over a report that diapers may have been shoplifted. They encountered two adults and the child getting into a vehicle, as ABC News reported. Kohen Wiley's mother, who has not been publicly named, was in the passenger seat. An unnamed friend was driving. The baby was also in the car.
What happened next is bitterly disputed. The MBI's account says the driver moved toward officers. The mother says her friend was driving away. One officer opened fire. The vehicle fled the scene. The baby was dead, and his mother was critically wounded.
The mother believes her friend paid for the diapers. Whether that is true has not been confirmed publicly. But even if the diapers were stolen, the proportionality of the response demands scrutiny. A suspected petty theft at a big-box store ended with a dead infant and a mother fighting for her life.
The second autopsy and the physical evidence
At the Wednesday press conference, Crump displayed photographs of the vehicle. The Associated Press reported that the passenger-side window was shattered and a bullet hole was visible on the passenger side of the windshield, details that support the family's contention that the shot came from the side, not head-on.
Crump spoke from the church pulpit and did not hold back:
"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."
He pressed on the gap between what investigators have said and what they have shown the public:
"They want us to believe that it was a life-or-death situation. They told us that, but they have not showed us that."
The family is demanding the release of police body camera footage, dashcam video, and Walmart surveillance recordings. None of those have been made public. The MBI spokesperson declined to comment Wednesday, stating only that "the case remains an open and ongoing investigation."
In officer-involved shooting cases across the country, the release, or withholding, of video evidence often determines whether public trust holds. In Fraser, Michigan, officers were cleared in a fatal shooting only after bodycam footage was released and the public could see for itself what happened. Senatobia residents have no such transparency yet.
A town on edge
Senatobia is a small town. The shooting has prompted community protests, and residents have pointed to what they describe as a pattern of troubling encounters with local police in recent years. The specifics of those prior incidents have not been detailed publicly, but the sentiment is clear: trust between the community and law enforcement was already frayed before Kohen Wiley's death.
Kohen's grandfather, Carlos Haynes, told the New York Post plainly: "Somebody needs to be held accountable for it." The baby's great-grandmother, Carolyn Stokes, said the family has been left largely in the dark: "We don't really know anything, why it happened or whatever. All we know is that car was shot up and a one-year-old baby was killed."
That frustration is understandable. Weeks after the shooting, the family still does not know the name of the officer who fired. They do not know whether that officer has been placed on leave, suspended, or charged. They have not seen the video. The MBI has offered no timeline for completing its investigation.
The Tate County Sheriff's Department has also launched an independent investigation into potential officer misconduct, adding another layer to the inquiry. But additional investigations mean little to a grieving family if none of them produce answers on a reasonable timeline.
The transparency deficit
Conservatives rightly demand accountability from government at every level. That principle does not stop at the precinct door. Law enforcement officers carry lethal authority granted by the public, and when that authority is exercised, especially when an infant dies, the public has a right to know what happened and why.
None of that means rushing to judgment. A second autopsy commissioned by a plaintiff's attorney is not the final word. Ian Adams, a policing expert at the University of South Carolina, cautioned that "we need to know a lot more before drawing firm conclusions based on bullet wounds alone." Fair enough. But the way to know more is to release the evidence, not to sit on it while a community simmers.
The pattern is familiar and troubling. In Hartford, Connecticut, a former officer was charged with manslaughter after a shooting, and autopsy findings were central to the case. The lesson is consistent: forensic evidence and video footage either vindicate officers or hold them accountable. Withholding both serves neither purpose.
Crump framed his demand for transparency bluntly: "We are here because the lack of transparency, and we're going to try to continue to demand transparency." Whatever one thinks of Crump's broader record, the demand itself is hard to argue with. If the officers acted lawfully, the footage will show it. If they did not, the public deserves to know that too.
What remains unanswered
The list of open questions is long. Which department employed the officers involved? How many officers were on scene? Who fired the fatal shot, and what is that officer's current duty status? Has the official autopsy been completed, and do its findings align with or contradict the family's pathologist? Did the driver actually pay for the diapers? Has Walmart responded to the demand for surveillance footage?
Every one of those questions could be answered tomorrow if the relevant authorities chose to answer them. The fact that none have been, weeks after a baby was killed, is itself a statement about priorities.
Officer-involved shootings are among the most consequential uses of government power. In Albuquerque, multiple fatal shootings in a single week forced a public reckoning with how and when officers deploy lethal force. Senatobia is a far smaller stage, but the stakes for the people involved are no smaller.
The shooting has also drawn comparisons to other high-profile cases involving Black individuals and police, including the death of George Floyd, a case that began with an accusation of a petty criminal offense and ended in a national convulsion. Those comparisons carry political freight, but they also carry a factual core: the gap between the alleged offense and the lethal outcome demands explanation.
Conservatives who back the police, and most do, rightly, should be the first to insist on transparency when the facts look this bad. Officers put their lives on the line every day, and the vast majority do so honorably. But honor requires accountability. Shielding a bad shoot protects no one, least of all the good officers whose reputations suffer when the institution circles the wagons.
The bottom line
A one-year-old child is dead. His mother nearly died beside him. The call was about diapers. The officer knew a baby was in that car and fired anyway. The family's autopsy says the shot came from the side, not the front. And the public has seen none of the video that could settle the matter.
The MBI owes this family, and this country, a thorough, honest investigation completed without unnecessary delay. The officers involved deserve due process. But due process is not the same as indefinite silence.
When the government takes a life, the government owes an explanation. Especially when the life taken hadn't yet learned to walk.
