Police Shooting of 1-Year-Old Kohen Wiley ‘Was Justified,’ Mississippi Attorney General Says
The police shooting that killed 1-year-old Kohen Wiley as he sat in his mother’s lap in a Walmart parking lot in Senatobia, Miss., in June “was justified,” Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch’s office announced on Monday.
“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 Republican attorney general’s statement said. “In this incident, the Attorney General’s Office found the use of force was justified. Pursuant to Section 45-1-6 of the Mississippi Code, the review followed an investigation by the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation.”
Officers were responding to a shoplifting call alleging that Wiley’s mother, Vellesiya Wiley, and Latoya Ferrell had stolen a pack of diapers. The women exited the store with the child as officers arrived, entered their vehicle and began to leave the parking lot. Officers drew their weapons, and Vellesiya Wiley lifted her son up to show the officers that a child was in the car. One officer fired into the vehicle, killing the baby as she held him. A bullet also wounded Ferrell.
https://www.mississippifreepress.org/police-shooting-of-1-year-old-kohen-wiley-was-justified-mississippi-attorney-general-says/Open linkView original on sh.itjust.works
159 replies
Consider this a warning: We can speak about the horrors of this case without leaning into misogyny and attacking this woman for how she looks.
Comments attacking anyone for how they look will be subject to removal.
How about the murderers for what they were wearing?
I don't think there could possibly be a greater bashing of her appearance than this warning post.
Seriously, this is more insulting than anything I'd have expected to see.
Context would have revealed that there were already comments directly bashing how she looks before I made my mod comment.
I love this. Thank you.
Oh great, Reddit style modding. We’ve learned nothing.
Blocking this community
Thanks for leaving!
Jinkies, amirite?
Maybe there should be a location for this? Just to blow off steam and know it's not serious or is more so an emotional outburst.
A location for bashing how a woman looks? You're on the internet. It's fucking everywhere here.
Not specifically for that. More generally for emotional outbursts.
Edit: it's sad to see people just down voting instead of actually having a discussion. Maybe a tad cowardly in my book, at least reductive behavior.
You replied directly to my warning about bashing someone for how they look. Consider context.
There's [email protected] and a variety of others that are similar.
We can deviate a little from the conversation as other comments here have and others across Lemmy typically do without question.
I have many comments here, you could've replied directly to them instead. Of course I'm going to think that you're looking for a place to bash women if you reply directly to that comment asking.
You're more than welcome to continue to ignore context throughout the Fediverse, I don't really care what you do.
I didn't take the time to read all of your comments, I apologize for that. It's still an open question of if there should be a location for emotional outbursts, not specific to what you're saying or what you're saying I'm saying. Of course people will have emotional outbursts and it's a real aspect of the human condition so it may be useful to have a location for that.
I had a full conversation with you and you just want to be cheeky.
Say it with your chest or gtfo.
I'm not talking about you unless you are using multiple accounts to down vote?
No, I’m talking directly to your beating around the bush in what your initial comment meant.
By all means - expand on what you meant right here.
I mean I meant what I said. If people want to have inappropriate emotional outbursts (typically from a source of anger) then it may be useful to have a dedicated location for that instead of it spilling out into discussions.
Better not watch Jimmy Kimmel or any political comedy then!
Does this look like a comedic post to you?
I'm saying it's super mainstream to denigrate or make fun of the appearances of people as part of criticizing their actions or politics.
Personally I find it immoral and stupid. Saying e.g. "Trump is fat" as a way of showing your disapproval won't hurt him and will just make things worse for others, but it's so common that I usually don't even bother making a fuss.
I respect your position and good luck maintaining it.
Most of those making fun of the way Trump looks (at least in my experience) tend to be focusing more on his bad spray tan, and that's more criticising his poor judgement of voluntarily going out looking like that.
I’m literally on lemmy and not doing that so what the fuck are you talking about?
See sibling comment, but the idea is that attacking someone's appearance (including genetic/unchangeable things) is super common in public discourse in e.g.the US and A.
Okay? Something being “super common” doesn’t mean shit. We don’t want it here.
Okay?
No. It isn’t. That’s why we are having this conversation.
I also think it's bad
And we should be calling it out there too.
Agreed!
I don’t because they fucking suck! Good check, bro
So, she stole diapers, didn't have a weapon, I can't imagine she was driving while holding up a child, and posed some sort of imminent threat?
Where is the immediate threat to life and limb?
They're claiming that the other woman was driving the vehicle towards officers, but shooting at a moving vehicle is never justified anyway.
It's all bullshit to protect the police here.
Yeah, shooting at the driver of a moving vehicle should almost never be justified, except in extreme cases.
Why would it ever be justified? Shooting the driver doesn't cause the car to screech to a stop, it just turns a controlled moving vehicle into an uncontrolled moving vehicle.
the cops will lie to create one, they always do. Hopefully it was being recorded-- its the only way to have a chnace of justice when cops are present.
Life and limb of shareholder money.
Stop me if you heard this one
"So there I was! Getting ran over by a mother that stole dipers. When my training kicked in and I shot the first black male there. God saved me!"
https://www.wapt.com/article/police-shooting-that-killed-1-year-old-senatobia-child-ruled-justified/74182398
Lookout, Jimbo! She's comin' right for us!
This, but unironically.
https://www.southparkstudios.com/video-clips/61i3mb/south-park-let-s-get-those-kids
How the fuck is shooting into a moving vehicle ever justified?
Release the body cam and the Walmart video.
What really gets me is that tracking down vehicles is like the purpose of Flock and other ALPRs and dead people usually can’t hit the brakes.
So even having had a chance to see the license plate personally and living in a world where helicopters and magnetic AirTag like devices exist if you don’t have access to Flock or some other ability to simply follow the fucking car for whatever reason they still think they were justified in killing a child in order to… not stop the car before it would have hit an officer if it was going to because, like I said earlier, dead people don’t generally have the ability to stop cars…
And let just be totally honest, if you have time to register speed and direction of a car, unholster, unsafety, cock, aim, and fire, then you or whoever else had time to get out of the fucking way of the car!!!
Minor quibble. The vast majority of police in the USA are issued pistols (Glocks) without manual safeties. So that wouldn’t slow them down!
Explains why they are always shooting themselves in the foot.
That is fucked up.
Even if we accept the premise she was driving straight towards them, shooting her does not stop the vehicle.
I don’t accept that premise, by the way.
For a non violent property crime (of stealing diapers, probably one of the most ethical crimes you could do as a poor person) they could have mortised the license plate, they had video of her, they could have stepped aside and could have shot the vehicle’s tires.
I see no universe where this makes any sense.
if there were any evidence that supported the cops' story, they would have released it.
the fact that none of the footage from WALMART or any dash or body cam footage has been released tells you everything you need to know.
Not to disagree with your central point, but shooting out tires is extremely impractical in real life. It still won't stop the vehicle, and you'll almost certainly miss.
Yeah, please don't go shooting a gun in public. This isn't the movies. Just write down the license plate number and then go to their house. Simple.
Actually in this case, it was for stealing diapers. So just look the other way, go to lunch and call it a day.
If they really wanted to “set things right” they could have had their police department pay for the diapers, but I won’t hold my breath
They don't even need to, they know who she is they can just charge her bank account directly with zero violence, zero public officer duty labor hours, zero weapon discharge bullets costs.
When you have a hammer and a ducktape, have been trained to only use a hammer, taught that everything is a nail, all you can do is hammer nails.
The tape is just there. Hammer is all that's ever used
Slurs fucking suuuck!
Thank you for calling it out, I hadn't seen their original comment before. Slurs do suck and definitely break the rules here. Feel free to report next time so I can nip it earlier :)
Timeline sucks, life should not be like this but you should ignore everything and let the corruption happen while censoring unhappy comments!
What a way to justify using slurs.
Great job censoring discourse! The overlords love this very much, hope you get your promotion
Slurs aren't discourse.
For shoplifting diapers? I can't even...
Yeah, but diapers kinda sounds like diamonds and minor kinda sounds like miner and diamonds are mined by miners who sometimes unionise but not like police unions which are good but workers unions which are like socialism which is like communism which is bad and anti-American and why do you hate America what do you want the terrorists to win?
I see Tucker Carlson finally joined the fediverse!
Jesus, if they are trying to paint themselves in the best possible light with this, that place is a shithole. There isn't any part of this that even warrants pulling a gun. A fucking pack of diapers? No weapons? And a known baby in the vehicle?
Why did any of that need to be dealt with immediately and with deadly force?
Ya hear that folks? Shoplifting diapers for your child is legally punishiable by death but if you brutally rape someone else’s child, you can be president of an entire nation!
Scorched earth people. NEVER forgive, and NEVER let them forget they not only allowed this, but approved it.
Ftfy it's worse than what you said
My takeaway from this is that any time I see a cop, there's a chance they shot a baby to death and suffered no consequences? Are they even human at this point?
Substitute firing a weapon for chewing off a leg.
"Serve and protect"
"The public?"
"No, the property owners. Diapers recovered."
"In a subsequent investigation we discovered the diapers were in fact damaged by the officer. The officer in question has been executed."
No, fired. Then hired at a different district.
Nah, he got a paid "suspension" and used the time to make more money as "security" at the night club, where he either beat or murdered more people of color.
Walmart probably won't even clean the blood off the box before putting them back in the shelf at full price
American cops will never understand that they can just take a license plate and go knock on the door later, no, "I said stop and they are not stopping! The punishment for disobedience is death!"
This was always my train of thought. Why not just get the license plate and let the suspect think they got away, then just catch them at home later. American cops are just trigger happy assholes.
You can steal plates or simply not have plates. What then? The problem is cops treat everyone as if they are extremely dangerous individual, without any evidence to the contary. I wouldnt even put it pass these idiots from shooting the infant even if the mother did comply. They are that damn paranoid.
They can run the plates and check if they match the car or if the car itself is listed stolen in literal seconds...
American cops choose violence.
Yeah it is the entire point. It's an extra charge they can guarantee if they don't comply.
And carry all that ammo both ways?
Not both ways. They are gonna unload at her home.
You might be the bad guys if you kill children and say "It was justified" when pressed on it.
WHY? Why did the fucking idiots pull their guns? How is such escalation of force justified for this situation?
Look up the "paper bag test", it's a long standing American law enforcement doctrine. Sometimes formal, sometimes informal, always in effect.
Not where I thought that was going...
Never having heard of this before, I assumed it was 'the paper bag might have a weapon in it! Bang bang bang.'
I thought it would be to pop a paper bag and see if they react by shooting back
"I'm hit!" Bang bang bang...
Jesus fuck, all over a pack of diapers from, I assume, a company worth a hundred billion dollars.
Like when they slowly strangled George Floyd to death over a $20 bill. It's never about the alleged crime. They'll keep murdering people and getting away with it until they don't.
Not only white but two misconduct charges and an internal complaint days prior to the shooting for making racially offensive remarks to a coworker. Yet this is the guy the AG let’s skate for murdering a baby because the vehicle was “driving in their direction” and “nearly struck him”. Last month their police chief was fired for texting racial slurs, on a completely unrelated note.
He was...crawling right at them? Might have overpowered them? And of course it happened at a walmart.
What would have happened if the lady got away with a pack of stolen diapers? Worth firing guns over I guess?
I dont even recognize this country anymore. Its barbaric.
If police can shoot at you for stealing a pack of diapers worth $20 or less, why won't they come to your house after a burglarly unless you lost more than $600 worth of stuff?
They do if you have a 6,000 sq/ft home.
They murdered a baby over a nonviolent misdemeanor that would have had at most had a $1000 fine. We need to wall off a lot of the red states from civilized society, kind of like escape from NY/LA.
Maybe when they are forced to deal with their own shit hole states they'll make them livable.
The police involved should be treated as murderers.
They refuse to be tried as individuals. They stand together.
One bad apple spoiled the bunch.
Just when I thought America couldn't get any worse...
Mississippi. What an absolute shithole
Sadly, it happens in every state now. This shit just doesn't make the news unless it happens to a young, wealthy white woman.
We're literally on a post about it happening to a black family.
Yes. That's my point. This shit happens everywhere everyday in the US. The only notable thing is you heard about it this time. It should be national news.
This story has been national news.
You have a point, but this isn't the story to make said point.
Fuck that cop and fuck that attorney general. In no goddamn way is it Justified to kill someone over fucking pack of diapers that Walmart doesn't even fucking report. That Walmart should be protested against and the attorney general should get zero rest.
Cops are terrorists. No exceptions.
Okay, I'm not a cop, so perhaps I'm missing something here, but why did they approach the car with weapons drawn?
Should there not be some sort of restraint in the employment of firearms? I mean, that's how I was trained.
It’s because the cop wanted to shoot a black person.
If they don't escalate the scene to 999 right away, how can they justify shooting of innocents? Your logic is getting in the way of their fun! /s
When it's convenient to do so, they equate the vehicle to a giant gun the driver is pointing at them. That way they don't need to think at all and can pull trigger until scary thing stops.
to protect the children, tho.
ACAB
Ghoul
I shit you not, I'm from an authoritarian police state and shit like this still doesn't happen there.
Shooting a child in her mother embrace is incident ? from which universe ?
We outsourcing our police to Israel now?
And nothing will change until enough people get together to change it. We all have three votes, our political vote, our financial vote (how we choose to spend our money), and finally a vote with our life in protest / revolution. Every government today exists because people voted with their life, they fought often mortally to create that government. It's the duty of civilians to vote for the country and government they want.
horrific and super sad :(
On a positive note she doesn't need diapers anymore.
Yikes that comment's so dark the cop probably shot it too
How about you go make “positive” notes somewhere else dick.
That’s not very positive.
Dude…
Beyond words horrible
Why not go full Isreal and call them not even human?
Those people are heartless monsters.
Were the police trained in Isreal? Or is this just the result of standard cop Killology training?
por que no los dos?
Standard Killilogy.
Idk about Mississippi, but the NYPD does get IDF training.
every time i see one of those headlines i wonder which one is going to be the one that light the spark?
I feel... Loss.
There's a stream-like, icy-blue fog, protruding from a hole in the side of a mountain, waiting.
That baby had it coming, nobody is talking how he was already reaching for his gun!!!
When is the inbred, Fitch, going for her MAGA plastic surgery? The Mississippi Oblast continues to be a Top 10 Dump in the United Oblasts of AmeriKa.
Yeah that looks pretty much like how I'd expect her to look. Maybe with a little more lip filler.
We don't need to go there, y'know. We can criticize her decisions without attacking how she looks.
Can I still point out that RFK Jr looks like a water damaged catcher's mitt?
I dunno, that’s kind of offensive to catcher’s mitts.
Like the other person said. That face is an expression of her loyalty to Great Leader.
So what? It's still attacking a woman based on appearance. It's not ok, no matter who the woman is, and I will die on this hill.
Now if you want to attack her CHARACTER because her office decided that SHOOTING A 1 YEAR OLD BECAUSE HIS MOTHER STOLE DIAPERS is somehow ok, have at it.
I mean I'd attack people for getting a Nazi tattoo. Same thing here.
Yes because that's an ACTUAL hate symbol. It's not equivalent, and it most certainly is not the same thing here.
Plastic surgery is not equivalent to a Nazi tattoo.
Branding a swatiska on yourself isn’t the same as having excessive makeup/cosmetic surgery actually.
It's worth mentioning how she looks because that ghoulish plastic surgery look is an identity marker for the worst humans in the country.
The rich right wing lunatics who identify themselves by attaining that mar-a-lago face are also devoted to performative cruelty, like she is doing.
Her appearance is relevant here like her party membership is.
No. It's not. Everyone adjusts their appearance to some degree to fit in with their chosen group.
If you can't make a coherent argument against someone's behavior, or politics or beliefs, you fall back to their appearance.
It's why bigots will attack transgender people for not "passing" or attack Muslims for wearing a hijab, or misogynists attack women for having died hair, or too many piercings or why racists will attack the way other people dress.
It's easy. It's lazy. It's just "othering" people in the dumbest way possible.
She's done PLENTY to criticize, no matter what she looks like.
Oh yeah, critizing her behaviour is clearly more important and (i hope) more productive.
But it's still worth mentioning that of course she has mar-a-lago face.
No it's not! That's my whole point! Her appearance is beyond irrelevant! Focus on what matters!
It is not exclusive to MAGA women and honestly pushing to judge people's intent by how they look is leaning into some ugly stereotypes and discrimination.
Nor her appearance, nor her party membership, nor even if she was the one worse human would justify that police kills her 1 year old kid.