Over a pack of diapers.
A Mississippi officer fired into a car leaving a Walmart parking lot and killed Kohen Wiley, a one-year-old sitting in his mother's lap. The call was about a stolen pack of diapers. Four months later, the state attorney general ruled the killing “justified.”
We grade this the way we grade every Policing the Poor case: straight, on the documented record, with the parts the official story leaves out. The facts here are damning without any embellishment — and one of them is physical evidence that contradicts the justification the ruling rests on.
What this page is about
On June 14, 2026, police in Senatobia, Mississippi, responded to a call alleging two women had stolen a pack of diapers from a store. The women — Vellesiya Wiley and her friend Latoya Ferrell — had already left with Wiley's one-year-old son, Kohen, and were driving out of the lot when officers arrived and drew their weapons. Wiley lifted the baby up to show there was a child in the car. Sergeant Hunter Foster fired into the vehicle, killing Kohen and wounding Ferrell. Neither woman was ever charged with shoplifting, and officials have released no evidence that any theft occurred.
Four months later, the office of Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch announced the shooting “was justified.” The justification rests on the state's claim that the car drove toward officers — but an independent autopsy obtained by the family's attorney found the baby was shot from the side of the car, not the front, which cuts against that account. The footage still has not been released. We do not assert a crime the record hasn't charged; we lay out what is documented, including the contradiction the ruling glides past.
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Over a Pack of Diapers.
A Mississippi officer fired into a car leaving a Walmart lot and killed Kohen Wiley, a one-year-old in his mother's lap. The call was about stolen diapers. Four months later the state attorney general ruled the killing 'justified.'
What is documented
A one-year-old was killed by police over a diapers shoplifting call — and no one was ever charged.
FACTOn June 14, 2026, officers in Senatobia, Mississippi, a small city near Memphis, responded to a call alleging that Vellesiya Wiley and Latoya Ferrell had stolen a pack of diapers. Both women and Wiley's one-year-old son, Kohen, were killed or wounded minutes later: Kohen was shot dead. Neither woman has been charged with any crime, and officials have not released any evidence that a shoplifting occurred. The entire chain of events began with an unproven accusation about diapers.
The officer fired into a car that was leaving the lot — with the baby visibly held up inside.
FACTAccording to police reports, the women and child had exited the store, gotten into their vehicle, and begun to leave the parking lot when officers arrived and drew their weapons. Vellesiya Wiley lifted her son up to signal that there was a child in the car. An officer — identified in records as Sgt Hunter Foster — then fired into the vehicle, killing Kohen Wiley and wounding Ferrell. Foster is white; the two women and the child are Black.
The justification — 'the car drove at officers' — is contradicted by an independent autopsy.
FACTThe ruling rests on the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation's claim that the driver 'drove in the direction of the officers, almost striking one.' But the civil rights attorney Ben Crump, representing the family, released an independent autopsy indicating that Kohen was shot from the side of the car, not the front — which contradicts the officers' account that the vehicle was heading toward them. We grade FACT that the official justification and the independent autopsy conflict on the single question the justification depends on: where the car, and the gunfire, were actually pointed.
The state attorney general ruled it 'justified' — four months later, with the footage still not released.
FACTOn Monday, the office of Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch — not a court or a jury, but the state's chief prosecutor — announced that the shooting of Kohen Wiley 'was justified,' roughly four months after the killing. As of the ruling, law enforcement had still not released footage of the incident, which the family and its attorney have repeatedly demanded. The body with the evidence and the body that cleared the officer are both arms of the state; no independent, adversarial process has examined the killing.
This department has a documented recent record — including a chief fired for racial slurs.
FACTThe killing did not happen in a vacuum. In September 2026, Senatobia fired its police chief, who reportedly used racial slurs, and replaced him with Angelica Maze, who is Black. In 2023, the same department made national news for arresting and jailing a 10-year-old Black boy who had urinated in public — a child later sentenced to three months' probation. The town is about 40% Black. We state this documented context as fact; we do not use it to assign any individual a motive, because the record does not establish one.
Petty poverty, lethal force, no accountability
- It starts with criminalizing need. The call was about diapers. Whether or not a theft happened — and no one was ever charged — the response to a petty-property accusation escalated, within minutes, to an officer firing into a car with a baby in it. That escalation, over the smallest stakes, is the signature of Policing the Poor.
- The state investigates the state. The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation gathered the evidence; the Mississippi attorney general cleared the officer. The one piece of independent evidence in the public record — the family's own autopsy — points the other way, and the footage that could settle it is still being withheld. This is the accountability gap we document in No Foul Play: when the institution judges itself, the ruling tends to come back clean.
- The context is on the record, not in our heads. We don't have to speculate about race here. A white officer killed a Black baby; the department fired its chief, in the same window, for using racial slurs; and the same force jailed a 10-year-old Black child two years earlier. Those are facts. They are the reason the family's attorney says “trust the process” is not an answer.
- “Justified” is a legal conclusion, not the end of the question. A prosecutor declining to charge is not the same as an independent finding that the killing was necessary. The physical evidence is contested, the footage is hidden, and a one-year-old is dead. That is precisely the kind of case a functioning system would examine in the open — and this one has not.
Who the law protects, and who it doesn't
This is a Policing the Poor case and a Untouchables case in one. The people at the sharp end were accused of taking diapers; the person who killed a baby was cleared by the state four months later, without a public accounting and without releasing the footage. Strip it to the structure and it is the same machine we keep documenting: the poor are policed for the smallest things, and the officers who harm them are judged by the institutions they belong to.
The point that survives every fence is simple and does not require us to read anyone's mind: a one-year-old child is dead over a pack of diapers, the official justification is contradicted by the only independent evidence released, and the system's answer was to clear the officer and keep the video. A family was told to trust a process that has shown them nothing. That is the accountability failure, and it is documented in full.
Questions worth taking seriously
Isn't a 'justified' ruling the end of it? Didn't the investigation clear the officer?
Not in the sense people assume. The ruling came from the state attorney general — the chief prosecutor — not a court or jury, and it rests on the state's own claim that the car drove at officers. The one piece of independent evidence in the public record, the family's autopsy, indicates the baby was shot from the side, which contradicts that claim, and the footage that could resolve it hasn't been released. A prosecutor declining to charge is not an independent finding that a killing was necessary. We report the ruling as a fact and the contradiction as a fact.
Are you calling the officer or the attorney general racist?
No — we don't assign motives we can't prove. What we do is report the documented context, because it's part of the record: a white officer killed a Black one-year-old; the department fired its chief in the same period for reportedly using racial slurs; and the same force jailed a 10-year-old Black child in 2023. Those facts are why the family says “trust the process” isn't enough. We let the record speak and leave the labels to others.
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This site aggregates and grades a record that other outlets and primary sources have already put on the record. Every FACT-graded claim above is sourced to court filings, government reports, sworn whistleblower disclosures, published investigative journalism, or named-source statements. The citations are the accountability mechanism; this section is how you get on the record too.
The record
- The Guardian — Mississippi attorney general rules fatal police shooting of one-year-old as “justified”
- AP News — independent autopsy: Mississippi baby shot by police was struck from the side
- The Guardian — Kohen Wiley killing: protest and the mother's account
- The Guardian — Senatobia fires police chief who reportedly used racial slurs
- The Guardian — Mississippi town jailed a 10-year-old Black boy for public urination (2023)