The mother of one-year-old Kohen Wiley is speaking out after her son was fatally shot by a Mississippi police officer outside a Senatobia Walmart.
Vellesiya Wiley appears in a video posted on social media by attorney Ben Crump on Wednesday. She cleared the air about allegations that she was shoplifting diapers.
Vellesiya said she was leaving the Walmart with her son when police stopped her friend. “I kept walking because it had nothing to do with me,” she said.
Vellesiya added that she got in the car with her son and her friend, who was driving. “I raised my baby up because they was drawing their guns,” she said in the video. Vellesiya said she raised Kohen up to show police that he was in the car.
As the driver put the car in reverse, she hit another vehicle. Vellesiya said she heard three gunshots. “One of the shots hit [Kohen] in his rib cage and the other shots hit [the driver] in her arm and her thigh.”
They drove to a hospital, where Kohen was pronounced dead and the driver was treated for gunshot wounds. Vellesiya was not injured. She said a crowd outside the hospital asked police what happened and they were told she was shoplifting. “[The police] weren’t talking about me, they was talking about the driver,” she clarified.
Vellesiya denied allegations that her friend drove directly at the police. “They was all on the right side and she was driving toward the left,” she said. Vellesiya claimed the police “purposefully shot in the car.”
Vellesiya was not charged with any crime. The officer who fired into the car has not been identified but was placed on administrative leave, officials confirmed to Newsweek.
Kohen’s great-grandmother Carolyn Stokes previously told Newsweek the shooting was “reckless.” “It was unnecessary to be firing into a car,” she said. “Why did you draw your weapon on people that were potential shoplifters? Why did you not go into the store? Because they were rushing from the store? They could’ve just been in a hurry.”
“It was just reckless, crazy,” Stokes added. “I might as well say he had killing on his mind. I’m not a psychiatrist or anything like that, but it’s weird and crazy… God has the last say; he will bring this all to the forefront in due time.”
Vellesiya Wiley shares her account of the events that led to the tragic death of her 1-year-old son, Kohen Wiley, during a police encounter in Senatobia, Mississippi. The officer who fatally shot Kohen has been placed on administrative leave, but for Kohen’s family, leave is not… pic.twitter.com/f8EK4WTCL7
— Ben Crump (@AttorneyCrump) June 17, 2026