Outside the Walmart in Senatobia, Mississippi, where police shot and killed 1-year-old Kohen Wiley, a shrine of stuffed animals sits between the garden center and the pharmacy. There are teddy bears, elephants, and kangaroos with babies in their pouches. There is a Bluey plush toy — Kohen’s favorite cartoon — along with matchbox cars, a green plastic tractor, and an array of artificial flowers.

A banner frames the display, featuring a celestial image of baby Kohen wearing gingham overalls. A handwritten sign reads, “Justice Delayed is Justice Denied.”

In the parking lot, a cop pulled a gun on a gray Ford Fusion on a Sunday afternoon and fired while Kohen’s mother held him in the passenger’s seat. A bullet struck the child on his right side, tearing through his small body and exiting his left. The driver, who was also hit, sped to a hospital, but it was too late. At 19 months old, Kohen was dead.

The killing sparked anguish and rage in Senatobia, a small city some 40 miles south of Memphis, Tennessee. At protests and press conferences, people demanded answers, while officials stayed mostly silent. It took several days for the mayor to deliver a scripted video statement that did not even include the child’s name.

The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation announced a probe into the case. Speaking before an agitated crowd, state Department of Public Safety Commissioner Sean Tindell said this could take months, refusing to say when — or even whether — his agency would provide further updates.

Until then, the official narrative would be a version of a familiar tale told by those who kill under color of law: On June 14, Senatobia police got a shoplifting call from Walmart over baby clothes and a pack of Pampers diapers. According to an MBI press release, officers tried to stop “two subjects and a juvenile child fleeing from the store.” The suspects “drove in the direction of the officers, almost striking one.” That’s when an officer fired.

Police offered nothing to back the story. A witness video captured mostly chaos as the car drove off, while a woman who asked not to be named told a local TV station she saw police chasing the car before hearing gunshots. Nevertheless, the police narrative took off. On Facebook pages like “Senatobia Happenings UNCENSORED,” commenters blamed Kohen’s mother for his death.

The accusations escalated after famed civil rights attorney Ben Crump took the family’s case, with critics accusing him of stoking racial grievances for profit. When Crump released a video of Kohen’s mother, Vel’lesiya Wiley, telling her side of the story — saying she “raised my baby up” to warn officers that Kohen was with her — a wave of racist vitriol followed. Some demanded to know why Kohen wasn’t in a car seat. Others said she’d used him as a “human shield.”

The comments were shockingly cruel. They also ignored what Black residents of Senatobia, which is about 40 percent Black, had long insisted: Police treated them with contempt and brutality.