Family demands answers after Mississippi police shooting kills 1-year-old

A routine shoplifting call at a Walmart in Senatobia, Mississippi, ended with a 1-year-old dead, another adult seriously injured and a family demanding to know why officers opened fire on a fleeing vehicle. The shooting happened Sunday afternoon, June 14, 2026, in the parking lot of the store on U.S. 51, about 40 miles south of Memphis, Tennessee.

The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation said officers with the Senatobia Police Department and the Tate County Sheriff’s Office encountered two adults and a juvenile child running from the store into a vehicle. Investigators say officers tried to stop the vehicle, the driver drove toward officers and nearly struck one of them, and an officer fired at the vehicle as it fled. No officers were seriously injured, according to the bureau.

The vehicle then went to a nearby hospital, where 1-year-old Kohen Wiley was pronounced dead. One adult in the vehicle was seriously injured, and the child’s mother was physically unharmed. Family members identified the child as Kohen Wiley and said they still do not understand why the encounter escalated so quickly from a theft call to gunfire in a crowded parking lot.

Relatives, including grandfather Carlos Haynes, have described Kohen as a happy baby and are demanding justice. Their concern now extends beyond grief to process: they want body-camera footage and store surveillance video released so they can see exactly what officers saw and why force was used against a moving vehicle with a child inside. Marquell Bridges of the Building Bridges Coalition, who is helping the family find legal representation, said the mother was not stealing from Walmart and was not a witness to or accomplice in any crime.

The case now places the focus on proportional force, bystander safety and the policies that govern police encounters with vehicles that begin as property calls and end as deadly force incidents. The Senatobia Police Department said it is committed to full transparency and will share more information as facts are verified. The Tate County Sheriff’s Office said deputies were initially responding to an unrelated incident when assistance was requested, and Walmart said it is cooperating with law enforcement and is saddened by what happened at its Senatobia store.

The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation is leading the inquiry and says the case remains open and ongoing. When the investigation is complete, its findings will go to the Attorney General’s Office, where the decisions made in that parking lot will face the next layer of scrutiny.