Civil rights attorney Ben Crump stood with the family of 1-year-old Kohen Wiley on Monday and called for an independent autopsy and the release of all video connected to the police shooting that killed the child outside a Senatobia Walmart.
The June 22 press conference, held at Gospel Temple Church of God in Christ eight days after Kohen was killed, marked the latest escalation in a case that has ignited protests and renewed long-simmering tensions between Black residents and police in the north Mississippi town.
Crump, joined by Memphis attorney Van Turner, other attorneys, members of Kohen’s family and community activists, said the family does not want to rely solely on findings connected to the state investigation.
“When a baby is killed in a police shooting, the family should never have to wonder whether they are getting the full story,” Crump said. “This is how we make sure they get the full story.”
Kohen was killed June 14 after Senatobia police and Tate County Sheriff’s Office deputies responded to a reported shoplifting call at Walmart. The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation said officers attempted to stop a vehicle carrying two women and a child, but the driver drove toward officers, nearly striking one, before an officer fired, according to The Associated Press.
Kohen’s mother, Vellesiya Wiley, has disputed that account. In a video posted on social media by Crump, she said her friend, who was behind the wheel, was not driving toward the officers, because they were “all on the right side and she was driving towards the left,” AP reported. Wiley also said she believed her friend had paid for the diapers she was carrying.
At Monday’s press conference, Crump repeatedly questioned how an alleged shoplifting call involving diapers ended with police firing into a vehicle where officers knew a baby was inside.
“They were called over a box of diapers and a family now has to bury their baby,” Crump said. “You cannot put those two things next to each other and call it reasonable policing.”
Crump also criticized authorities for describing Kohen in a report as a “juvenile,” saying the language obscured the fact that he was a 1-year-old toddler.
“You do not call a baby a juvenile unless you already are building a case to justify what you did to that baby,” Crump said.
The family is seeking release of all video from the encounter, including police body camera footage, dash camera footage and Walmart surveillance video. The footage is critical to determine where officers were standing, Crump said, how many shots were fired and whether any officer was in danger when the shot that killed Kohen was fired.
Crump also said the family intends to arrange an independent autopsy to determine the trajectory of the bullet that killed Kohen.
“This autopsy is going to be an important part of what happened to Baby Kohen,” Crump said. “But you know what’s going to be more important? The video.”
Turner, a former Shelby County commissioner and former president of the Memphis Branch NAACP, said the video should not be withheld from the public.
“The body cam footage can be released today,” Turner said. “Walmart has cameras all throughout the parking lot. Walmart needs to do the right thing and release the video footage.”
The AP reported Friday that the officer who shot Kohen and the woman driving the car has been placed on administrative leave while MBI investigates. Authorities have said video will be released once the investigation is complete.
The shooting has drawn national attention and comparisons to other cases that left Black people dead after police encounters that began with allegations of minor offenses.
Bernice King, daughter of civil rights icon Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., said in an Instagram statement that the case reflects a deeper societal issue.
“We are treating items on a shelf as more valuable than a child,” King said. “That is not just bad policing; it is a moral collapse.”
For many in Senatobia, Kohen’s death also has reignited concerns about previous police encounters involving Black residents. Advocates have pointed to the arrest of a 10-year-old Black boy who urinated in a parking lot in 2023, and an encounter last year when Breshari Faulkner was pulled from her car during a confrontation over an handicapped parking space in the same Walmart lot where Kohen was shot, according to AP reports.
At Monday’s press conference, community activist Patrick Alexander, who grew up in Senatobia, echoed those concerns, saying Kohen’s death did not occur in isolation.
“This is not our first rodeo,” Alexander said. “This is not our first walk around the block with Senatobia Police Department.”
But for Kohen’s family, the public demands for accountability are inseparable from their private grief.
Lassandra Williams, Kohen’s paternal grandmother, remembered him as a sweet and loving child whose family had imagined a future full of ordinary milestones.
“I’m going to miss him,” Williams said. “They took away so much. I’m looking forward to graduation, first day of school — so much they took away from us. That’s why we demand justice, because it’s not right.”
Veronica Roberson, Kohen’s maternal grandmother, said he was her only grandchild.
“That baby meant everything to me,” Roberson said. “He’s all I had. My only and my first grandchild. I took his mother to the hospital to deliver him. And I named him. So our bond was special.”
Funeral services for Kohen are set for 2 p.m. Saturday, June 27, at Hosanna Family Worship Center in Pope, Miss.
Wiley, Kohen’s mother, spoke only briefly Monday.
“I watched my baby take his first breath, and I watched my baby take his last breath,” she said. “I’m still in disbelief about the traumatizing event that occurred that took my one and only child, Baby Kohen.”
She asked the community to keep her family in prayer.
“Justice for Baby Kohen,” she said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
