Mississippi Attorney General Declares Police Shooting of 1-Year-Old “Justified”

Por Shireen Akram-Boshar — Truthout

The shooting is part of a pattern of racist police violence against Black residents of Senatobia, Mississippi.

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Mississippi’s attorney general announced Monday that the police shooting of 1-year-old Kohen Wiley in June “was justified.”

“Today, the Office of the Attorney General announced it has completed the review of a June 14, 2026, incident in Senatobia involving one officer with the Senatobia Police Department,” the statement from the office of Mississippi’s attorney general, Lynn Fitch, said. “In this incident, the Attorney General’s Office found the use of force was justified.” The review was undertaken by Mississippi’s Bureau of Investigation.

In mid-June, police in Senatobia — a town in northwest Mississippi, 40 miles south of Memphis, Tennessee — shot and killed 1-year-old Kohen in a car outside of the local Walmart. Police claim they were responding to a shoplifting call, and pursued Kohen’s mother and the friend she was with before shooting at their car. Kohen’s mother, Vallesiya Wiley, has said that no shoplifting took place. Neither she nor her friend have been charged with shoplifting.

Vallesiya also stated as recently as this month that she has never been interviewed by investigators.

Ben Crump, a prominent civil rights attorney representing Kohen’s family, stated that police have still not released video footage of the shooting.

“How can anyone accept that conclusion when Kohen’s family and the public still have not been allowed to see the body-camera footage?” Crump said in a statement on Monday.

“If the footage supports the state’s decision, release it. We will not stop fighting until this family gets the truth.”

Crump has also said that autopsy evidence indicates that the 1-year-old was shot from the side of the car, contradicting claims by the police that the car was heading towards, and aiming to hit, the police.

The Mississippi Legislative Black Caucus (MLBC) also condemned the attorney general’s announcement that the officer’s use of force was justified, and demanded the release of evidence supporting the decision, as well as a public explanation and an independent review of the police department and its practices.

“Kohen Wiley was a baby. He posed no threat. He deserved protection, and he deserved a future. His family is owed more than a conclusion. They are owed the evidence, the explanation and the truth,” said MLBC Chairman Rep. Kabir Karriem. “Attorney General Fitch cannot reasonably expect public confidence in a decision the public has not been given the evidence to evaluate. Announcing that a review is complete does not fulfill the responsibility to explain how a police encounter ended with a baby dead.”

Throughout June, Senatobia residents protested Kohen’s killing — and have said that his shooting is part of a pattern of police violence against Black residents in Senatobia, which is about 40 percent Black. Senatobia also has a high poverty rate of 26.4 percent.

Last year, a Senatobia officer violently arrested a Black woman and threatened her with a Taser in the same Walmart parking lot where Kohen was shot, claiming that she had unjustifiably parked in a handicap parking spot. In 2023, a Senatobia police officer arrested a 10-year-old Black boy for urinating outside.

In September, Senatobia fired its police chief after reporting by Mississippi Today and The New York Times revealed that he regularly used racist slurs and expletives against Black residents. He has been replaced by Angelica Maze, an interim police chief who is Black — but the replacement is unlikely to rectify issues of police violence and racism in Senatobia.

Ben Crump decried the police department in his comments Monday. “This is a department whose chief was fired after reports of racial slurs in his text messages, and whose officer faced a complaint alleging a racially offensive remark two days before he shot Kohen,” he said in his statement.

Two days after Kohen’s killing in June, protests broke out across Senatobia at the City Hall and at the Walmart where he had been shot. Police deployed teargas against the protesters. A later march at the end of June demanded the police department release the footage. The police department has yet to do so.

Fitch is running for governor of Mississippi. A staunch Trump supporter, she joined a lawsuit in 2020 aiming to invalidate millions of votes in swing states as part of Trump’s “Stop the Steal” election denial movement. Her campaign website boasts of working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), assisting in overthrowing Roe v. Wade, and propelling anti-trans legislation.

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Shireen Akram-Boshar is a socialist writer, editor and Middle East/North Africa solidarity activist.

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Fonte: Truthout