Dossier mode
Kohen Wiley
The same investigation, restaged one beat at a time. Drive it with the arrow keys, space, or autoplay. Nothing is cut from the piece — long runs are split across frames. Read the full investigation or open the Policing the Poor hub.
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.'
A petty-property accusation about diapers escalated, within minutes, to an officer firing into a car with a baby in it — and the state cleared the officer four months later, without releasing the footage and against the only independent evidence in the record.
Graded on the documented record (Guardian, AP); the racial context carried as FACT; no criminal verdict asserted (officer not charged) and no motive assigned (the record doesn't establish one).
A one-year-old was killed over a diapers shoplifting call — and no one was ever charged.
On June 14, 2026, Senatobia, Mississippi police responded to a call alleging Vellesiya Wiley and Latoya Ferrell stole a pack of diapers. Minutes later Wiley's one-year-old son Kohen was shot dead. Neither woman has been charged with any crime, and officials released no evidence a shoplifting occurred. The chain began with an unproven accusation about diapers.
The officer fired into a car that was leaving the lot — with the baby held up inside.
Per police reports, the women and child had entered their vehicle and begun leaving the parking lot when officers arrived and drew weapons. Vellesiya Wiley lifted her son up to signal a child was in the car. Sgt Hunter Foster fired into the vehicle, killing Kohen 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.
The ruling rests on the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation's claim the driver 'drove in the direction of the officers, almost striking one.' But attorney Ben Crump released an independent autopsy indicating Kohen was shot from the SIDE of the car, not the front — contradicting the account that the vehicle headed toward officers. FACT that the official justification and the independent autopsy conflict on the exact question the justification depends on.
The state attorney general ruled it 'justified' — four months later, footage still withheld.
Mississippi AG Lynn Fitch's office — the state's chief prosecutor, not a court or jury — announced the shooting 'was justified,' ~4 months after the killing. Footage still had not been released, despite repeated family demands. The body with the evidence (MBI) and the body that cleared the officer (the AG) are both arms of the state; no independent, adversarial process examined the killing.
The department has a documented record — including a chief fired for racial slurs.
In September 2026 Senatobia fired its police chief, who reportedly used racial slurs, replacing him with Angelica Maze (who is Black). In 2023 the same department arrested and jailed a 10-year-old Black boy for public urination (later sentenced to 3 months' probation). The town is ~40% Black. Stated as documented context; NOT used to assign any individual a motive the record doesn't establish.
The line we hold.
- No criminal verdict asserted: Sgt Foster has not been charged and the AG ruled the shooting justified. We document the facts and the independent-autopsy contradiction, not a conviction.
- No motive assigned: we carry the documented racial context (white officer, three Black victims, a chief fired for racial slurs in the same window, a 2023 child jailing) as FACT, and leave the labels to others.
- The shoplifting is unproven: neither woman was charged and no evidence of a theft was released.
- 'Justified' is a prosecutor's conclusion, not an independent finding the killing was necessary — the physical evidence is contested and the footage is withheld.
Why it matters.
A Policing the Poor case and an Untouchables case at once: the people at the sharp end were accused of taking diapers; the officer who killed a baby was cleared by the state four months later, without a public accounting and without releasing the footage. The point survives every fence and requires reading no one's mind — a one-year-old 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. The same machine we keep documenting: the poor policed for the smallest things, the officers who harm them judged by the institutions they belong to.
Help us fill these lines.
- OpenThe withheld footage, which the family and its attorney have repeatedly demanded and which could resolve the direction-of-travel dispute.
- OpenThe full MBI case file and the basis for the AG's 'justified' determination.
- OpenWhether any independent or federal review of the killing or the department follows.