Editor’s note: This story was orignally published in Mississippi Free Press here.
SENATOBIA, Miss.—People scattered in a Walmart parking lot on Tuesday as law enforcement officers, who were wearing gas masks and lined up under the store’s grocery-side entrance, unleashed tear gas on the crowd that had gathered to protest the police killing of 1-year-old Kohen Wiley.
Two days earlier on June 14, the young Black child died after a Senatobia police officer fired into a moving car, killing him and injuring the child’s aunt, who was driving. Officers, who had been responding to a call alleging that someone had tried to steal a box of diapers, claimed that the car was driving toward the officer when he fired—a claim that some witnesses have disputed.
On Tuesday evening, the mayor and the Senatobia Board of Aldermen placed the officer on administrative leave. He has not been publicly identified.
Hours earlier, 200 people gathered about a mile away from the Walmart in downtown Senatobia outside City Hall, voicing exasperated anguish over the child’s death.
Contributing writer Andrew Bell is a North Mississippi resident and a native Memphian who studied creative writing and literature. He has many years writing features and news in journalism and working in communications for non-profits.
