POPE, Miss. — Before the outcry, before the demands for justice, before he was placed inside a small casket with a stuffed Bluey, a family had looked forward to sharing simple moments with Kohen Wiley, who was just months away from his second birthday and named by his maternal grandma.
Fishing trips with grandpa. Getting to know his cousins. The first day of school.
Those dreams ended June 14 in a Walmart parking lot in the north Mississippi city of Senatobia, about 40 miles away from Memphis, when 1-year-old Wiley was shot by police responding to a shoplifting call. Thirteen days later, after his mother watched him take his last breath, she walked into a rural Mississippi church holding a stuffed Bluey of her own to say goodbye to her baby boy.
Delivering the eulogy, the Rev. Keri Henson, under the leadership of Pastor Fred Butts, shared how Kohen’s mother had witnessed his first steps, calling their bond “inseparable,” while Kohen’s father had described him as “kind of goofy.” His grandfather, Henson said, had deemed Kohen his “favorite person.”
“We can look at his pictures and see the light in his eyes,” Henson said.
As mourners gathered in the sanctuary of Hosanna Family Worship Center, many wearing shades of blue in tribute, questions surrounding the shooting remained. The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation has said the shooting unfolded when responding officers arriving at the Walmart saw “two subjects and a juvenile child fleeing from the store into a vehicle.”
Authorities said the driver almost struck an officer, and an officer opened fire. Kohen’s mother, Vellesiya Wiley, has said she was a passenger in the car and that the driver, a friend who has not been identified, was not trying to hit anyone as she attempted to drive away. The investigating agency said Wiley’s friend was critically injured in the shooting.
During the service, Van Turner, a Memphis-based civil rights attorney representing the family, told the crowd there was no justification for Kohen’s death.
“There is nothing in that Walmart store that is more precious than a baby,” he said to applause.
The family’s legal team has said the police were called over allegedly stolen diapers.
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