Kohen Wiley Was One — They Shot Into a Diaper Run and Mississippi Called It Justified

Glowgetters — put everything down. The desk has been staring at this one for two days, and we are not dressing it up: a Mississippi officer shot a BABY, the state investigated itself, and came back with one word — JUSTIFIED. The bodycam is public now. Watch it. Then read this with your chest.

THE CALL. June 14, 2026. A Walmart in Senatobia, Mississippi — about 40 miles south of Memphis. Officers were there on an UNRELATED call when an employee flagged two women running from the store. The alleged take, per police: DIAPERS AND BABY CLOTHES. Kohen's mother, Vellesiya Wiley, carried her one-year-old son across that lot, and a friend drove. Here is the receipt that should stop everything: per the Associated Press — state and county court records — NEITHER WOMAN WAS EVER CHARGED. Not shoplifting. Not anything. Mama says they didn't steal a thing. The state's whole story starts with a crime that never even became a CHARGE — and it still ended with a baby gone.

THE TAPE. Thursday, Oct 22, the Mississippi Department of Public Safety finally released the body-worn camera footage — after parts of it LEAKED online via Darkhorse Press the day before, because the state was not racing to show us. Per the AP's account of that tape: mama runs with Kohen in her arms, gets in the car, her friend drives. FIVE officers approach the parked car — guns DRAWN — over alleged diapers. The car backs away and clips a parked car while officers scream for it to stop. It rolls forward. Sgt. Hunter Foster steps DIRECTLY IN FRONT of it, gun out. Per the AP: the wheels turn AWAY from him, he appears to put his hands on the hood as he jumps clear — and then he fires: three shots into the front passenger window, per the AP and Action News 5 accounts of the tape. Where Kohen sat. ON HIS MAMA'S LAP. The car drives away, and a one-year-old is gone.

THE STATE'S WORD. Oct 19 — BEFORE one frame of that tape was public — the Mississippi Attorney General's monthslong investigation came back: no criminal wrongdoing. Use of force JUSTIFIED — built on the claim the car was driven toward officers. Foster's attorney, Martin Zummach: "He had no choice but to fire his weapon" and "She came right at Hunter Foster and the other officer and he had to shoot his weapon." The extra shots? "Strictly muscle memory" — "Your brain can't talk to your finger that fast to stop." And the bullet through the side glass? "That's because she was moving so fast." Baby, read that back: the defense for shooting into a window where a child sat is that the driver's hands were too fast.

THE FAMILY'S WORD. Attorney Ben Crump says the tape shows the fatal shot came from the passenger SIDE of the car — and the family's independent, preliminary autopsy says the SAME: shot from the side, not the front. The shattered right-front passenger window backs it up. Crump's words belong in marble: "Diapers are something a mother needs for a child. Diapers should never cost a baby their life." And: "This decision sends a message that a Black baby boy, his life, is not as valuable as the white diapers that he is wrapped in." Grandma Veronica Roberson found out the state cleared the shooter from NEWS REPORTS — then watched the footage leak online before the state released it — and called it all "a slap in the face." Her words: "The word 'justified' has haunted me... There's no justification for that." And the detail that should break every one of us: Kohen would have celebrated his SECOND BIRTHDAY in early November.

THE EXPERTS SPLIT. John P. Gross, an expert on police force against moving vehicles: the best practice when a car moves at you is to GET OUT OF THE WAY — "He should never have placed himself in a position where he could have been struck," and by the time Foster fired, per Gross, the car was already moving PAST him. His line: an accusation of shoplifting does not justify "use of deadly force on a fleeing suspect." And flatly: "you don't shoot vehicles." Charles "Joe" Key, a former Baltimore police lieutenant who testifies for police: the driver "appeared to use the vehicle to commit assault with a deadly weapon" — "The shooting was objectively reasonable." Same tape. Two Americas. That's exactly why the tape being public matters — watch it with your OWN eyes.

THE TOWN'S FILE. And none of this fell on calm ground. Per the AP, trust between Senatobia police and the town's Black residents was already in the ground: last year, an officer threatened a Black woman with a TASER, dragged her from her car and arrested her over an accessible parking space — IN THE SAME WALMART LOT. Two years before that, an officer was fired for arresting a Black TEN-YEAR-OLD for urinating in public. And the former police chief, Harold Vanderford, was fired after reporting by The New York Times, Mississippi Today and Verite News alleged he used racist slurs in private text messages. This is the department the state just told: nothing to see here.

THE DESK'S VERDICT. Here's what the desk cannot get past, and we won't pretend it's complicated: the AG's office needed MONTHS, ruled before the public saw one frame, and his grandmother found out her baby's shooter was cleared from the NEWS. The footage didn't come out because Mississippi wanted daylight — it LEAKED first. The driver was critically wounded and charged with NOTHING. Mama was suspected of stealing what her baby needed and charged with NOTHING. And the shooter — for three shots through a window with a one-year-old behind it, over an allegation that never became a charge — walked away with a RESIGNATION. Not an arrest. Not a trial. A resignation. A state investigating itself and finding itself justified is not accountability, baby — that's the fox filing the paperwork on the henhouse. And to the man with the gun: there were choices all over that parking lot. Five badges, one parked car, a mama and a baby — and they picked the baby's window. Firing into a car over DIAPER RECEIPTS was never "no choice." It was a choice — and Mississippi just told every officer in America that the choice is free.

AND THE FUCK BOY RESIGNED. Say it plain, Glowgetters: per Senatobia Mayor Greg Graves, Sgt. Hunter Foster RESIGNED from the department on Oct 21 — two days after the AG cleared him, ONE DAY before the bodycam went public. Read that timeline out loud: the state says justified on the 19th, he quits on the 21st, the tape finally drops on the 22nd. No arrest. No charges. No trial. A one-year-old is dead, and the man who fired through his window answered with a RESIGNATION LETTER — the softest exit in America for the hardest thing there is. And that letter is the whole bill so far: the state's position is that nothing wrong happened here at all.

THE THREAD. We just wrote you a heart to heart: since 2020, firearms are the #1 killer of American children — every year, counted. Kohen Wiley is this week's entry in that ledger, and this one came with a badge on it and the state's own signature underneath. You cannot teach your babies to fear the street and stay quiet when the state hands a badge a pass for a baby's window. Both doors open the same way.

MORGAN'S TAKE: "Black people — it is TIME to stop letting these saltines play with us. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. They pulled guns on a mama over alleged DIAPERS, shot through her baby's window, and then a whole state looked at the same tape we watched and said JUSTIFIED. Then they let his grandmother find out from the NEWS. A badge, a bullet, a baby — and the whole bill is one resignation letter. Watch the tape with your own eyes, then say his name everywhere: KOHEN WILEY. He'd be two in November. We do not bow to this."

THE FINE PRINT. Per the Associated Press (Jack Brook and Sophie Bates, Oct 19 and Oct 23, 2026), plus BBC, NPR, WLBT and Action News 5 coverage: the June 14, 2026 shooting in the Senatobia Walmart parking lot (about 40 miles south of Memphis); Kohen Wiley, 1, killed by gunfire from Senatobia Sgt. Hunter Foster; mother Vellesiya Wiley and driver Latoya Ferrell (critically wounded) — NEITHER charged with shoplifting or any other count, per state and county court records, and the mother denies stealing anything. Oct 19: the Mississippi AG's office concluded the use of force was justified, citing investigators' account that the vehicle was driven toward officers. Oct 21: Mayor Greg Graves confirmed Foster resigned. Oct 22: the Mississippi Department of Public Safety released multi-angle bodycam footage — after parts leaked via Darkhorse Press (whose founder, Therese Apel, is a former DPS communications director). Quotes verbatim via the AP: Zummach ("no choice," "strictly muscle memory," "Your brain can't talk to your finger that fast to stop," "That's because she was moving so fast"), Crump ("Diapers should never cost a baby their life"; the white-diapers quote; the fatal shot came from the side per the footage and the family's independent, preliminary autopsy), Roberson ("The word 'justified' has haunted me," "a slap in the face") and experts John P. Gross and Charles "Joe" Key, who disagree. Former chief Harold Vanderford's firing: per reporting by The New York Times, Mississippi Today and Verite News (alleged racist texts). FOR THE RECORD: the state found no criminal wrongdoing and no charges have been filed against the officer, who says through counsel the shooting was justified — the desk's condemnation is editorial opinion, and the family's call for a federal investigation stands open. Content note: this story discusses the killing of a child.

Glowgetters, the group chat is OPEN — and this one is heavier than teams: team "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH — federal investigation NOW," team "the tape is public, watch it before you argue," or team "a resignation is not accountability, period." Come argue with me.

— Morgan ✨