06/23/2026
I’ve been sitting in silence for days trying to find the words for what America makes me feel constantly. My jaw has been clenched so long the tension feels more natural than relaxing my shoulders does.
On June 14, a Senatobia police officer fired into a car in a Walmart parking lot and killed Kohen Wiley. He was one.
The call was about a box of diapers. His mother says she was in the passenger seat holding him, lifting him up so the officers could see there was a baby in the car. She says they fired anyway. One shot hit her son in the rib cage. Another person was left in critical condition.
The officer is on leave and still hasn’t been named. Mississippi Bureau of Investigation has the case, and the body cam footage stays locked up until the state decides to release it. The community used its power to stand for Kohen and demand transparency. This past Saturday, a boycott shut the Senatobia Walmart down, the second time in a week.
Walmart is a private company, it doesn’t have to wait on the police, and it could release its own surveillance video today. As of this writing, It hasn’t. Attorney Ben Crump now represents the family, and on Monday they’re expected to announce an independent autopsy.
And I keep coming back to the diapers. Not to explain it. Nothing explains police shooting a one-year-old. I come back to them because of the math this country runs. Diapers shouldn’t be a luxury. No parent buys them because they want to. We buy them because a baby needs them. And the whole machine, the call, the chase, the gun, started over a single box.
We get told there isn’t enough. Not enough for childcare. Not enough for food assistance. Not enough to help families one bad week from going under. Then the country finds $60 million for a UFC cage on the White House lawn, on June 14, for the president’s birthday, the same season a $300 million ballroom goes up at that same address.
Ballroom. Cage fight. A box of diapers. A one-year-old. Figure out what’s wrong with that picture.
In America, diapers & Walmarts are protected more than Black women and babies. There was nothing in that Walmart worth a life. Still, the guns come out.
Rest in peace, Kohen. Our sincerest condolences to the family. ✊🏾🖤
