Bodycam Footage Shows Shooting Of 1-Year-Old Kohen Wiley, And It’s Infuriating

What appears to be leaked police body camera footage shows the Senatobia police shooting that killed 1-year-old Kohen Wiley on June 14 — which the office of Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch determined was a “justified” shooting this week — and what led up to it.

The video, posted online by Darkhorse Press, shows five police officers running out of the Walmart after an employee told them a shoplifter was trying to drive away. At least two of the officers already had their guns drawn at the time they all swarmed the silver sedan, demanding that the driver “stop the car.” But the driver drove forward, nearly hitting one of them as she tried to drive away, and the cops opened fire.

Content warning: this video is violent and infuriating, if you’re not a “back the blue” bootlicker, of course.

So, we already saw with the killing of  Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent — which showed plainly a woman who was trying to drive away from agents and was shot to death for her effort — that people who are simply dedicated to being on the side of violent cops think it’s reasonable that those cops’ first instinct is to shoot to kill, rather than get out of the way of a fleeing vehicle.

And, in this case, we’re talking about Black women and a Black child, so we should already know a lot of people are going to look at this footage and decide what they always decide: that trained police officers are allowed to panic and be fearful and impulsive, but if untrained civilians, especially Black civilians, act on the same range of emotions in ways that won’t result in anyone’s death, they still deserve to die by the hands of law enforcement.

Mind you, as we previously reported, this all happened because Kohen’s mother, Vellesiya Wiley, and another Black woman, Latoya Ferrell, were accused of stealing a pack of diapers from that Walmart, and yet neither woman has been charged with shoplifting, or any crime related to weaponizing vehicles against cops, for that matter.

This was all over diapers — diapers that were likely not stolen.

Actually, according to Darkhorse Press, officers are reviewing video of the store after a complaint of “a pervert,” which was unrelated to the alleged shoplifting complaint, when they were alerted that the women were about to drive off. The outlet also claims the video shows a security guard talking to the two women, who then break into a run toward their car.

But again, if no criminal charges have been pressed against anyone involved in this case, why is Kohen dead, and how is the shooting justified?

Well, actually, the answer is pretty clear: our systems of “justice” and policing are designed to protect cops first, and Black people, especially Black children, last, if at all.

That’s what happened to Kohen.

SEE ALSO:

Mississippi AG: Cop ‘Justified’ In Killing Of 1-Year-Old Kohen Wiley

Of Course America Justified The Police Killing Of A Black Baby [Op-Ed]