Mississippi family seeks answers after toddler killed by police gunfire

A Mississippi family is demanding answers after a 1-year-old boy was killed when a police officer responding to a shoplifting call at a Walmart fired at a vehicle in the store’s parking lot.

The shooting happened Sunday afternoon in Senatobia, about 40 miles south of Memphis, Tennessee. The child, Kohen Wiley, was in the vehicle with his mother and a friend of his mother when the officer opened fire, said Marquell Bridges, a community advocate helping the family find legal representation.

Kohen was killed, and the mother’s friend was seriously injured, Bridges said. The child’s mother was not physically harmed.

The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, which is investigating the shooting, said Senatobia police officers went to the Walmart after a shoplifting call and “encountered two subjects and a juvenile child fleeing from the store into a vehicle.” The agency said officers tried to stop the vehicle, “but the driver drove in the direction of the officers, almost striking one.” An officer then discharged a weapon at the vehicle, the bureau said.

The driver left the parking lot and went to a nearby hospital, where Kohen was pronounced dead, authorities said. No law enforcement officers were seriously injured, according to the bureau.

Bridges, president and founder of the Building Bridges Coalition, disputed any suggestion that Kohen’s mother was involved in a theft. In a Facebook post Tuesday, he said the boy’s mother did not steal from Walmart “and was not a witness to or accomplice to any crime.”

“She was skipping and playing with her child kohen to the car moments earlier not fleeing a theft,” Bridges wrote. “What started as an ordinary day, playing with your baby and getting into a car, turned into the worst day of a mother’s life and a tragedy this community will carry for years to come.”

Bridges called on the Senatobia Police Department to release body camera footage and Walmart surveillance video.

Carlos Haynes, Kohen’s grandfather, described the boy as a happy baby whose life had barely begun. “Someone ended it all before it could even start,” Haynes said.

The Senatobia Police Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment from NBC News or The Associated Press. In a Facebook post Sunday, the department said it was “committed to full transparency.”

“As the investigation progresses and facts are verified, we will share as much information as possible,” the department wrote.

The Tate County Sheriff’s Office was also at the scene. The office said in a news release that deputies had been responding to an unrelated incident when their assistance was requested. “Please keep the family of the deceased in your thoughts and prayers,” the sheriff’s office said. The Guardian reported that the sheriff’s office declined to comment further.

Walmart said it is cooperating with law enforcement. “We’re saddened by what took place at our Senatobia, MS, store,” a Walmart spokesperson said in a statement.

The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation said it will turn over its findings to the state Attorney General’s Office when the investigation is complete.