The police shooting that killed 1-year-old Kohen Wiley as he sat in his mother’s lap in a Walmart parking lot in Senatobia, Miss., in June “was justified,” Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch’s office announced on Monday.
“Today, the Office of the Attorney General announced it has completed the review of a June 14, 2026 incident in Senatobia involving one officer with the Senatobia Police Department,” the Republican attorney general’s statement said. “In this incident, the Attorney General’s Office found the use of force was justified. Pursuant to Section 45-1-6 of the Mississippi Code, the review followed an investigation by the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation.”
Officers were responding to a shoplifting call alleging that Wiley’s mother, Vellesiya Wiley, and Latoya Ferrell had stolen a pack of diapers. The women exited the store with the child as officers arrived, entered their vehicle and began to leave the parking lot. Officers drew their weapons, and Vellesiya Wiley lifted her son up to show the officers that a child was in the car. One officer fired into the vehicle, killing the baby as she held him. A bullet also wounded Ferrell.
Consider this a warning: We can speak about the horrors of this case without leaning into misogyny and attacking this woman for how she looks.
Comments attacking anyone for how they look will be subject to removal.
I love this. Thank you.
But she looks deranged and is
Better not watch Jimmy Kimmel or any political comedy then!
I’m literally on lemmy and not doing that so what the fuck are you talking about?
See sibling comment, but the idea is that attacking someone’s appearance (including genetic/unchangeable things) is super common in public discourse in e.g.the US and A.
Okay? Something being “super common” doesn’t mean shit. We don’t want it here.
Okay?
No. It isn’t. That’s why we are having this conversation.
I also think it’s bad
And we should be calling it out there too.
Agreed!
I don’t because they fucking suck! Good check, bro
Does this look like a comedic post to you?
I’m saying it’s super mainstream to denigrate or make fun of the appearances of people as part of criticizing their actions or politics.
Personally I find it immoral and stupid. Saying e.g. “Trump is fat” as a way of showing your disapproval won’t hurt him and will just make things worse for others, but it’s so common that I usually don’t even bother making a fuss.
I respect your position and good luck maintaining it.
Most of those making fun of the way Trump looks (at least in my experience) tend to be focusing more on his bad spray tan, and that’s more criticising his poor judgement of voluntarily going out looking like that.
Maybe there should be a location for this? Just to blow off steam and know it’s not serious or is more so an emotional outburst.
A location for bashing how a woman looks? You’re on the internet. It’s fucking everywhere here.
Not specifically for that. More generally for emotional outbursts.
You replied directly to my warning about bashing someone for how they look. Consider context.
There’s !offmychest@lemmy.world and a variety of others that are similar.
We can deviate a little from the conversation as other comments here have and others across Lemmy typically do without question.
I have many comments here, you could’ve replied directly to them instead. Of course I’m going to think that you’re looking for a place to bash women if you reply directly to that comment asking.
You’re more than welcome to continue to ignore context throughout the Fediverse, I don’t really care what you do.
I didn’t take the time to read all of your comments, I apologize for that. It’s still an open question of if there should be a location for emotional outbursts, not specific to what you’re saying or what you’re saying I’m saying. Of course people will have emotional outbursts and it’s a real aspect of the human condition so it may be useful to have a location for that.
I had a full conversation with you and you just want to be cheeky.
Say it with your chest or gtfo.
I’m not talking about you unless you are using multiple accounts to down vote?
No, I’m talking directly to your beating around the bush in what your initial comment meant.
By all means - expand on what you meant right here.
I mean I meant what I said. If people want to have inappropriate emotional outbursts (typically from a source of anger) then it may be useful to have a dedicated location for that instead of it spilling out into discussions.
How about the murderers for what they were wearing?
I don’t think there could possibly be a greater bashing of her appearance than this warning post.
Seriously, this is more insulting than anything I’d have expected to see.
Context would have revealed that there were already comments directly bashing how she looks before I made my mod comment.
Oh great, Reddit style modding. We’ve learned nothing.
Blocking this community
Thanks for leaving!
Jinkies, amirite?
Ghoul
So, she stole diapers, didn’t have a weapon, I can’t imagine she was driving while holding up a child, and posed some sort of imminent threat?
Where is the immediate threat to life and limb?
the cops will lie to create one, they always do. Hopefully it was being recorded-- its the only way to have a chnace of justice when cops are present.
Where is the immediate threat to life and limb?
They’re claiming that the other woman was driving the vehicle towards officers, but shooting at a moving vehicle is never justified anyway.
It’s all bullshit to protect the police here.
Yeah, shooting at the driver of a moving vehicle should almost never be justified, except in extreme cases.
Why would it ever be justified? Shooting the driver doesn’t cause the car to screech to a stop, it just turns a controlled moving vehicle into an uncontrolled moving vehicle.
Life and limb of shareholder money.
Jesus, if they are trying to paint themselves in the best possible light with this, that place is a shithole. There isn’t any part of this that even warrants pulling a gun. A fucking pack of diapers? No weapons? And a known baby in the vehicle?
Why did any of that need to be dealt with immediately and with deadly force?
“Serve and protect”
“The public?”
“No, the property owners. Diapers recovered.”
“In a subsequent investigation we discovered the diapers were in fact damaged by the officer. The officer in question has been executed.”
No, fired. Then hired at a different district.
Nah, he got a paid “suspension” and used the time to make more money as “security” at the night club, where he either beat or murdered more people of color.
Walmart probably won’t even clean the blood off the box before putting them back in the shelf at full price
How the fuck is shooting into a moving vehicle ever justified?
Release the body cam and the Walmart video.
What really gets me is that tracking down vehicles is like the purpose of Flock and other ALPRs and dead people usually can’t hit the brakes.
So even having had a chance to see the license plate personally and living in a world where helicopters and magnetic AirTag like devices exist if you don’t have access to Flock or some other ability to simply follow the fucking car for whatever reason they still think they were justified in killing a child in order to… not stop the car before it would have hit an officer if it was going to because, like I said earlier, dead people don’t generally have the ability to stop cars…
And let just be totally honest, if you have time to register speed and direction of a car, unholster, unsafety, cock, aim, and fire, then you or whoever else had time to get out of the fucking way of the car!!!
Minor quibble. The vast majority of police in the USA are issued pistols (Glocks) without manual safeties. So that wouldn’t slow them down!
Explains why they are always shooting themselves in the foot.
ACAB
The women exited the store with the child as officers arrived, entered their vehicle and began to leave the parking lot.
Officers drew their weapons
WHY? Why did the fucking idiots pull their guns? How is such escalation of force justified for this situation?
Look up the “paper bag test”, it’s a long standing American law enforcement doctrine. Sometimes formal, sometimes informal, always in effect.
paper bag test
In the United States, the “brown paper bag test” is a term in Black oral history used to describe a colorist discriminatory practice within the Black community in the 20th century, in which an individual’s skin tone is compared to the color of a brown paper bag. The test was used to determine what privileges an individual could have…
Not where I thought that was going…
Never having heard of this before, I assumed it was ‘the paper bag might have a weapon in it! Bang bang bang.’
I thought it would be to pop a paper bag and see if they react by shooting back
“I’m hit!” Bang bang bang…
Yeah that looks pretty much like how I’d expect her to look. Maybe with a little more lip filler.
We don’t need to go there, y’know. We can criticize her decisions without attacking how she looks.
Like the other person said. That face is an expression of her loyalty to Great Leader.
So what? It’s still attacking a woman based on appearance. It’s not ok, no matter who the woman is, and I will die on this hill.
Now if you want to attack her CHARACTER because her office decided that SHOOTING A 1 YEAR OLD BECAUSE HIS MOTHER STOLE DIAPERS is somehow ok, have at it.
I mean I’d attack people for getting a Nazi tattoo. Same thing here.
Yes because that’s an ACTUAL hate symbol. It’s not equivalent, and it most certainly is not the same thing here.
Plastic surgery is not equivalent to a Nazi tattoo.
Branding a swatiska on yourself isn’t the same as having excessive makeup/cosmetic surgery actually.
It’s worth mentioning how she looks because that ghoulish plastic surgery look is an identity marker for the worst humans in the country.
The rich right wing lunatics who identify themselves by attaining that mar-a-lago face are also devoted to performative cruelty, like she is doing.
Her appearance is relevant here like her party membership is.
Her appearance is relevant
No. It’s not. Everyone adjusts their appearance to some degree to fit in with their chosen group.
If you can’t make a coherent argument against someone’s behavior, or politics or beliefs, you fall back to their appearance.
It’s why bigots will attack transgender people for not “passing” or attack Muslims for wearing a hijab, or misogynists attack women for having died hair, or too many piercings or why racists will attack the way other people dress.
It’s easy. It’s lazy. It’s just “othering” people in the dumbest way possible.
She’s done PLENTY to criticize, no matter what she looks like.
Oh yeah, critizing her behaviour is clearly more important and (i hope) more productive.
But it’s still worth mentioning that of course she has mar-a-lago face.
No it’s not! That’s my whole point! Her appearance is beyond irrelevant! Focus on what matters!
Nor her appearance, nor her party membership, nor even if she was the one worse human would justify that police kills her 1 year old kid.
It is not exclusive to MAGA women and honestly pushing to judge people’s intent by how they look is leaning into some ugly stereotypes and discrimination.
For sure, it’s also maga men who buy mar-a-lago face and others who want to be associated with wealth and grift.
I’m not suggesting judging intent by looks but when you see performative cruelty, you almost always see that face. It’s relevant, it correlates.
It’s like finding out a child sex offender is an active member of the republican party. Not all pedophiles are republicans and republicans can’t be assumed to be pedophiles, but it’s worth mentioning because there is a strong stastical correlation between the two.
Can I still point out that RFK Jr looks like a water damaged catcher’s mitt?
I dunno, that’s kind of offensive to catcher’s mitts.
Cops are terrorists. No exceptions.
Neither woman has been charged with a crime, and officials have not released any evidence of shoplifting. Wiley and both women are Black; the officer identified as the subject of the investigation, Hunter Foster, is white.
Not only white but two misconduct charges and an internal complaint days prior to the shooting for making racially offensive remarks to a coworker. Yet this is the guy the AG let’s skate for murdering a baby because the vehicle was “driving in their direction” and “nearly struck him”. Last month their police chief was fired for texting racial slurs, on a completely unrelated note.
I shit you not, I’m in an authoritarian police state and shit like this still doesn’t happen there.
When is the inbred, Fitch, going for her MAGA plastic surgery? The Mississippi Oblast continues to be a Top 10 Dump in the United Oblasts of AmeriKa.
If police can shoot at you for stealing a pack of diapers worth $20 or less, why won’t they come to your house after a burglarly unless you lost more than $600 worth of stuff?
They do if you have a 6,000 sq/ft home.
You might be the bad guys if you kill children and say “It was justified” when pressed on it.
