Two months after Kohen Wiley, a one-year-old boy, was fatally shot by a Mississippi police officer, Black lawmakers in his state are continuing to demand accountability and answers as to why this child was killed.
On Monday, State Representative Kabir Karriem wrote an open letter on behalf of the Mississippi Legislative Black Caucus, calling for state Attorney General Lynn Fitch and Commissioner Sean Tindel to establish “direct, timely, and ongoing communication with the Wiley family” during the investigation.
“Transparency is not a courtesy that government extends when convenient; rather, it is a fundamental responsibility that accompanies the exercise of public authority,” Karriem wrote in the letter. “Kohen Wiley’s family deserves answers. While those answers are being pursued, they also deserve respect, consistent communication, and assurance that the institutions investigating his death recognize their accountability to the people they serve.”
Significance. Baby Kohen was killed on June 14. According to a statement from the Senatobia Police Department, officers were responding to reports of a shoplifting incident at a Walmart at approximately 2:05 pm.
Local outlets previously reported that the suspects were two adults and one child who attempted to run the officers over with their truck during a confrontation. One of the adults was Kohen’s mother, Vellesiya Wiley, law enforcement claims. Action News 5 says that officers fired shots at the truck to stop them from striking the officers. One bullet hit Kohen, and the other hit Vellesiya’s friend, the driver of the truck.
Kohen was taken to a nearby hospital and pronounced dead there.
The power structure. Following the incident, the Senatobia Police Department released a statement pledging “full transparency” regarding the shooting. However, little additional information has been released about Kohen’s death.
The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, headed by Commissioner Tindel of the Mississippi Department of Public Safety, opened an investigation immediately after the incident.
Overlooked angle. Experts say it’s important to keep the families impacted in mind when shootings are investigated.
Members of the Mississippi Legislative Black Caucus met with the Wiley family and their representatives to listen to their “grief, unanswered questions, and concerns about the lack of meaningful communication regarding the investigation.”
In an Instagram post, the organization Black Lives Matter wrote, “We refuse to be silent. We refuse to be desensitized. We refuse to let another stolen Black life disappear beneath the next headline.”
What experts say. A previous investigation by The Emancipator shows that Black boys are disproportionately victims of police killings compared to boys of other races and ethnicities. The analysis was done with a database compiled by The Washington Post that showed police killings from 2015 to 2024 across the country. With filtering, the researchers found that 67 Black boys were shot and killed by the police. Over the same time period, 42 Hispanic boys and 41 White boys were killed by police shootings.
When comparing these statistics to the greater Black and White boy population in 2024 U.S. Census data, The Emancipator investigation found that Black boys are 6.5 times more likely to be shot and killed by police officers.
