Cops Killed a 1-Year-Old at a Mississippi Walmart. Family and Community Demand Justice in the Name of Baby #KohenWiley

The tiny body of baby #KohenWiley is being laid to rest this weekend. Police murdered the one-year-old in his mother’s arms on June 14 after she was falsely accused of failing to pay for a pack of diapers at Walmart. 

Uprisings, protests, and actions are being organized by Building Bridges and Black Lives Matter Grassroots in partnership with Movement 4 Black Lives, and community groups. 

Along with Baby Kohen’s family, Building Bridges and Black Lives Matter Grassroots demand the following:

1. Immediately release all police body and dash camera footage and dispatch communications, unedited and unredacted.
2. Name, arrest, and prosecute all cops involved in the murder of Baby Kohen, including Hunter Foster, who fired through the door of a moving vehicle and killed Baby Kohen.
3. Stop the attempted character assassination of Kohen’s mother, family, and community.
4. Walmart immediately release store-owned video that captures the horrific killing, unedited and un-redacted.
5. Walmart engage in a massive shift in its policies in order to value Black life and halt the practice of calling the police on Black people, especially when they are being accused of non-violent, non-life-threatening offenses.

The murder of Baby Kohen is one of the most profane examples of police violence in human history. It is also part of a surge in the killings of Black people by police that stem from white-supremacist capitalist interests, which utilize police as protectors of profit at the expense of Black life. 

Community is mobilizing on the ground in Mississippi and across the nation to ensure that there are political and economic consequences. There has been a call issued for a nationwide boycott of Walmart in the name of Baby Kohen (as well as #JohnCrawford, #StevenTyler, and many more before him and #DeandreaRobertson just two days after). Uprisings in Senatobia will continue. As we pray for and hold Baby Kohen’s family in their time of unimaginable grief, our commitment is to transform the world. Black babies deserve to live and grow into their fullest selves and their parents, caregivers, and communities have a right to the resources they need to survive and thrive. Until there is justice in Baby Kohen’s name, and in honor of all of our martyrs – especially our children, there will be no peace.