Relatives of a toddler shot dead on Sunday by police in rural Mississippi are demanding answers and accountability.

“I don’t know anything right now,” Carlos Haynes told Memphis channel WMC. “My grandson gone. I just want justice.”

Carolyn Sokes, the slain toddler’s great-grandmother, said: “The police department not telling us anything. They removed the baby’s body without anybody seeing it. All we know is that a car was shot up and a 1-year-old baby was killed, and then nobody tells us anything, like we’re not anybody.”

One-year-old Kohen Wiley, who was being held by his mother in the front passenger seat while his aunt was behind the wheel, was shot and killed by police in Senatobia, 40 miles south of Memphis, during an incident in a Walmart parking lot. The baby’s aunt was also shot and critically injured.

Cellphone video footage obtained by Fox 13 Memphis shows a vehicle driving away from officers, but does not appear to capture the moment of the shooting. A photo of the car shows bullet holes in the windshield.

An eyewitness told WREG that “I seen the officers take off running, not in the car, I’m talking about on feet."

“They’re running through the parking lot and I see the car take off, you know, so in my head, I’m like, I know they’re not chasing the car, they don’t think they’re going to catch the car. Then I hear gunshots, and I’m like, I know they’re not shooting at a car that’s leaving in public; this is Walmart."

Another witness said that he heard two gunshots fired by officers who were already waiting in the Walmart parking lot as the two women left the store holding a box of diapers and the baby.

According to the Mississippi Department of Public Safety (DPS):

Law enforcement officers responded to a shoplifting call at Walmart on US 51. Upon arrival, officers encountered two subjects and a juvenile child fleeing from the store into a vehicle. 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. The subjects arrived at a local hospital where one juvenile child in the vehicle was pronounced deceased, and another subject had critical injuries. No law enforcement officers received any serious physical injury.

The responding law enforcement agencies—the Senatobia Police Department (SPD) and Tate County Sheriff’s Office (TCSO)—have yet to release the names of the involved officers or any video footage of the incident.

TCSO said deputies were in the area investigating an unrelated matter when their assistance was requested. On Monday, Tate County Sheriff Luke Shepherd declined to comment about the shooting, including whether anyone had been charged, citing pending investigations, according to Mississippi Today.

SPD issued a statement saying it is “committed to full transparency” and “will share as much information as possible” with the public.

Walmart said in a written statement, “We’re saddened by what took place at our Senatobia, MS store."

Relatives of the slain toddler said his mother and aunt were not shoplifting and expressed wariness about local police, who have been embroiled in multiple brutality scandals involving Black victims in recent years.

“Senatobia Police Department get away with too much stuff,” Stokes, the great-grandmother, told WREG. “I hear about it all the time, it’s in the news all the time."

Licole Wiley, the child’s grandmother and the sister of the critically injured woman, lamented that the toddler died “allegedly over some Pampers.”

“Whatever the incident may have come to, it still didn’t need for you to shoot two adults and a baby that was not even a threat to you,” she added.

Another one of the child’s grandmothers, Lasandra Williams, said that “everybody that was involved needs to be held accountable."

"I’m not giving up until I get justice,” she added. “Justice will be served. If it has anything to do with me, it will be served.”

Mississippi Today reported Tuesday that Wiley’s relatives have hired national civil rights attorney Ben Crump.

“A 1-year-old child is dead because police officers in Mississippi opened fire on a car in a crowded Walmart parking lot,” Crump said in a statement. "Kohen Wiley was a baby. His mother, who has not been charged with any crime, says she was trying to communicate to officers that there was a baby in the car. They fired anyway, leading to the death of an innocent 1-year-old. We intend to seek justice for baby Kohen and the life that was stolen from him.”

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