2026年6月19日 / 美国东部时间上午11:11 / 哥伦比亚广播公司/美联社报道
本周，一名警察在接到商场盗窃报警后开枪打死一名1岁男童，这一事件激化了密西西比州塞纳托比亚小镇警方与黑人居民之间长期积压的矛盾。
科恩·威利的死亡是近年来一系列引发社区民众愤怒的警方冲突事件中的最新一起。这个拥有8000人口的小镇因此爆发抗议活动，民众呼吁加强警方问责制。一些民权活动人士指出，科恩的死亡是又一例黑人生命因所谓“微不足道的小事”逝去的案例——此次事件中，被指被盗的物品据说是尿布。
“我们竟然将货架上的商品看得比一个孩子的生命更珍贵，”民权偶像马丁·路德·金的女儿伯尼斯·金在周三发布在Instagram上的一份声明中说道，“这不仅是糟糕的警务行为，更是道德的沦丧。”
这起枪击事件及其前因后果仍有诸多未解之谜。
塞纳托比亚警方周日接到当地一家沃尔玛商场的盗窃报警后出警，在现场发现两名女子和一名儿童离开商场，上车驾车逃离。密西西比州调查局发布的声明称：“警员试图截停该车，但司机驾车朝警员方向驶来，险些撞到一名警员。随后一名警员开枪，车辆逃离了现场。”
科恩的母亲韦莱西亚·威利表示，她的儿子和驾车的友人被子弹击中。民权律师本·克伦普周三在社交媒体发布的一段视频中，威利称友人当时并没有驾车冲向警员，而是“警员们都在右侧，她当时正朝着左侧行驶”。
在视频中，威利称她带着儿子和友人离开沃尔玛，友人因涉嫌盗窃被警方盯上。三人进入友人的汽车，友人启动车辆倒车时撞到了另一辆车。威利表示，就在那时，她看到警员们举着枪朝汽车跑过来。
“我抱起我的孩子，试图向他们展示他在车里，”她说，“等我把孩子放下，就开了三四枪。”
韦莱西亚·威利讲述了密西西比州塞纳托比亚警方对峙事件中她1岁儿子科恩·威利不幸身亡的经过。开枪打死科恩的警员已被行政休假，但对科恩的家人来说，休假远远不够…… pic.twitter.com/f8EK4WTCL7
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——本·克伦普（@AttorneyCrump）2026年6月17日
她还驳斥了盗窃指控，称在视频中她认为友人当时已经为携带的尿布付了钱。
南卡罗来纳大学教授刑事司法的警务专家伊恩·亚当斯表示，无论具体情况如何，警员都不应该向车辆开枪。
“现代警务理念明确指出，向行驶中的车辆开枪是极不可取的行为，必须不惜一切代价避免，”亚当斯说。首先，“车辆上可能还有其他乘客，这显然是本案中需要关注的问题。”
开枪击中科恩及其乘车女子的警员已被行政休假，这是标准操作流程，目前密西西比州调查局正在调查事件经过。该局承诺调查完成后将公布枪击事件的相关视频。
但据哥伦比亚广播公司下属电视台WJTV报道，枪击事件发生后，数十名抗议者聚集在塞纳托比亚市政厅外举行集会，要求逮捕并解雇涉事警员。
“这就是明目张胆的枪击。鲁莽、轻率、冷酷无情，甚至可能是懦弱的行为，”抗议者阿雷莎·莱斯特告诉WJTV，“你该如何解释这一切？你无法向一个家庭解释，甚至无法向上级主管和指挥官解释。”
科恩的祖母维罗妮卡·罗伯逊在科恩出生时就在场，也经常帮忙照看他。她形容科恩是个快乐的小宝宝，有着“你能想象到的最可爱的笑容”。
她说科恩是个贴心的孩子。“他很黏我，我也很爱他，我们彼此深爱对方，”罗伯逊说。
他最喜欢的玩具之一是一辆小割草机，推着的时候会吹出泡泡。罗伯逊会坐在外面陪他玩。“他真的以为自己在帮我修剪院子，”她回忆起这段往事时笑着说，“那个孩子就是我的全世界。”
这张由马奎尔·布里奇斯提供的照片显示，2026年6月17日周三，一群悼念者在科恩·威利遇害的沃尔玛外举行临时悼念活动，纪念这名1岁男童。马奎尔·布里奇斯 via 美联社
科恩是黑人，他的母亲和友人也都是黑人，科恩之死的相关情况很快引发了人们与另一起案件的对比：同样是在商场盗窃指控的应对过程中，一名黑人母亲遭警察枪击身亡。
2023年，俄亥俄州哥伦布市郊区的塔基亚·杨在警方试图逮捕她时被警察开枪击中。当时她已经怀孕，还有两个年幼的儿子。警方称杨上车后驾车加速冲向警员，警员透过挡风玻璃向她开枪。杨和她未出世的女儿均不幸身亡。
该案涉事警员被宣告无罪，审查委员会认定其使用武力合法。
这两起死亡事件，只是美国黑人因轻罪指控与警方互动后丧生的众多案例中的两例。其中包括2020年乔治·弗洛伊德被谋杀案，当时警方接到报警称他在明尼阿波利斯一家杂货店使用假20美元钞票，随后他被警方杀害。
对一些种族正义倡导者而言，此类案件不断提醒人们，执法系统中存在系统性种族主义所带来的后果。
“以‘法律与秩序’之名，一名儿童就此丧生，一个家庭因本可补货、核销或替换的物品而破碎，”金在Instagram上写道，“我们的使命很明确：除非将人类生命的神圣性作为每一次警方 encounter 的出发点，否则我们必须持续要求改革培训，并不懈努力完善警方问责政策。”
“建桥联盟”倡导组织的主席兼创始人马奎尔·布里奇斯一直在协助威利一家，他表示科恩的死亡是多年来黑人居民与警方之间矛盾问题频发的“爆发点”。
布里奇斯指出了去年发生的一起冲突事件：在科恩遇袭的同一沃尔玛停车场，一名警员用泰瑟枪威胁布雷沙里·福克纳，将她从车上拽倒在地并逮捕，起因是一场关于残疾人停车位的争执。
两年前的2023年，塞纳托比亚的一名警员因参与逮捕一名在另一个停车场小便的10岁黑人男孩而被解雇。今年早些时候，该男孩的家庭与该市达成了联邦诉讼和解。
“那里有一种文化，认为警员身穿制服就凌驾于法律之上，”曾代表那名10岁男孩和其他指控警方行为不当的当事人的民权律师卡洛斯·摩尔说道。
警方未回应美联社的置评请求。市长和市议员也未回复消息。
根据2020年人口普查数据，该市约8300人口中约40%是黑人。警方未回应关于警局人员种族构成的问题，但市长和大多数市议员都是白人。据当地报纸《泰特记录报》报道，自1860年该市成为自治市以来，仅选出过三名黑人市议员。
Questions swirl after 1-year-old boy fatally shot by police in Mississippi
June 19, 2026 / 11:11 AM EDT / CBS/AP
The fatal shooting of a 1-year-old boy by police who were responding to a shoplifting call this week has ignited simmering tensions between police and Black residents in the small town of Senatobia, Mississippi.
The death of Kohen Wiley is the latest in a series of troubling encounters with police that have outraged community members in recent years. It has led to protests and calls for greater police accountability in the town of 8,000, with some civil rights activists pointing to Kohen’s death as another example of a Black life lost over something of nominal value — in this case, allegedly stolen diapers.
“We are treating items on a shelf as more valuable than a child,” Bernice King, the daughter of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr., said in a statement posted to Instagram on Wednesday. “That is not just bad policing; it is a moral collapse.”
There are still many unanswered questions about the shooting and what led up to it.
Senatobia police responded to the shoplifting call at a local Walmart on Sunday, where they found two women and a child leaving the store, getting into a car and driving away. According to a statement released by the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation: “Officers attempted to stop the vehicle, but the driver drove in the direction of the officers, almost striking one. An officer then discharged their weapon and the vehicle fled the scene.”
Kohen’s mother, Vellesiya Wiley, said her son and her friend, who was driving, were hit by gunfire. In a video posted on social media Wednesday by civil rights attorney Ben Crump, Wiley said her friend was not driving toward the officers because they were “all on the right side and she was driving towards the left.”
In the video, Wiley said she left Walmart with her son and friend, who was approached by police for alleged shoplifting. The three of them entered the friend’s car, and the friend, who was driving, hit another car when she switched it on and began to back up. At that point, Wiley said she saw officers running toward the car with their guns drawn.
“I raised my baby up, trying to show them that he was in the car,” she said. “By the time I sat my baby down, it was like three to four shots.”
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
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— Ben Crump (@AttorneyCrump) June 17, 2026
She also disputes the shoplifting claim, saying in the video she believes her friend paid for the diapers she was carrying.
Policing expert Ian Adams, who teaches criminal justice at the University of South Carolina, said regardless of the circumstances, the officer should not have fired at the car.
“Modern policing knows that shooting into a moving vehicle is a very bad idea and one to be avoided at almost all costs,” Adams said. For one thing, “vehicles have other occupants, which is obviously a concern here in the current case.”
The officer who shot Kohen and the woman driving the car he was in has been placed on administrative leave, a standard practice, while the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation looks into what happened. They have promised to release video of the shooting once the investigation is complete.
But protesters gathered by the dozens to rally outside of Senatobia City Hall in the wake of the shooting, calling for the police officer’s arrest and firing, CBS affiliate WJTV reported.
“It was just a blatant shooting. A reckless, careless, callous, might have even been cowardice, act,” one of the protesters, Aretha Lester, told WJTV. “So how do you explain that? You can’t explain that to a family. You can’t explain that even to a supervisor and to a commander.”
Kohen’s grandmother, Veronica Roberson, was there when Kohen was born and babysat him often. She described him as a happy little baby with “the prettiest smile you could ever imagine.”
She said he was a sweet child. “He just loved on me, and I loved on him. We loved each other,” Roberson said.
One of his favorite toys was a little lawnmower that would blow bubbles when pushed. Roberson would sit outside with him while he played with it. “He really thought he was mowing my yard,” she said, laughing a little at the memory. “That baby was my world.”
In this photo provided by Marquell Bridges, a group of mourners attend a makeshift memorial for 1-year old Kohen Wiley, outside the Walmart where the boy was shot by police in Senatobia, Miss., on Wednesday, June 17, 2026. Courtesy Marquell Bridges via AP
Kohen was Black, as are his mother and her friend, and the circumstances leading to Kohen’s death quickly drew comparisons to another Black mother shot during a response to a shoplifting accusation.
In 2023, Ta’Kiya Young, who was pregnant, was shot by police in a Columbus, Ohio, suburb, after they attempted to apprehend her. Police said Young, who was also the mother of two young sons, got into her car and accelerated in the direction of the officer who fired at her through the windshield. Both Young and her unborn daughter were killed.
The officer in that case was acquitted of criminal charges and found justified in his use of force by a review board.
The two deaths join a long list of other instances of Black Americans dying in interactions with police after accusations of petty criminal offenses. That list includes the murder of George Floyd in 2020, who was killed after police responded to a call that he used a fake $20 bill at a Minneapolis grocery store.
For some racial justice advocates, such cases serve as a constant reminder of the consequences of systemic racism in law enforcement.
“In the name of ‘law and order,’ a child was killed and family was shattered over items that could be restocked, written off, and replaced,” King wrote on Instagram. “Our charge is clear: until the sacredness of human life is the starting point of every police encounter, we must demand changes in training and work unrelentingly to reform policies around police accountability.”
Marquell Bridges, the president and founder of an advocacy group called the Building Bridges Coalition and who has been helping the Wiley family, said Kohen’s death was “just the breaking point” after years of problematic interactions between Black residents and police.
Bridges pointed to an encounter last year in which an officer threatened Breshari Faulkner with a Taser, pulled her from her car onto the ground and arrested her during a confrontation over a handicapped parking space in the same Walmart lot where Kohen was shot.
Two years earlier, in 2023, a Senatobia officer was fired for his role in arresting a 10-year-old Black boy who had urinated in a different parking lot. The boy’s family settled a federal lawsuit with the city earlier this year.
“There is a culture there that they are above the law — just because they wear a uniform,” said civil rights attorney Carlos Moore, who has represented the 10-year-old boy and others accusing the department of misconduct.
Police did not respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press. The mayor and city aldermen also did not respond to messages.
About 40% of the city’s population of approximately 8,300 is Black, according to 2020 Census data. Police did not respond to questions about the racial makeup of the department, but the mayor and a majority of the Board of Alderman members are white. The city has elected only three Black aldermen since it became a municipality in 1860, according to the Tate Record, a local newspaper.