The statement, held up to the record.
On October 21, 2026, Black Lives Matter Grassroots and the Building Bridges Coalition issued their statement on the killing of Kohen Kartier Wiley. This edition prints that statement as issued, reviews every load-bearing claim against the forensic record assembled since — the Attorney General’s own announcements, the verification ledger, CAN-SAY-V2 — and closes with a final editor’s pass and two short readings of how the statement persuades and how it communicates.
The Research Dashboard
The forensic program behind this review — the determination universe, the case catalog, the claims ledger, and the standing work — extracted from the research board for the team. Every number below is computed from the cataloged record; every claim carries the status the ledger gives it.
The AG’s office says it has concluded 86 reviews and found force justified “in all but four” (Sept. 28, 2026). We could locate 49 case-level public announcements. On the assumption that “concluded review” means what it says, at least 37 concluded reviews have no case-level public announcement we could find. That gap — stated whole, with its assumption — is the campaign’s strongest sourced claim.
“There is insufficient evidence of any criminal conduct to present this case to a grand jury. We are declining prosecution of this matter and will close the case accordingly.”
Kohen Wiley determination, Oct. 19, 2026. Under Miss. Code § 45-1-6(10) the AG is the exclusive presenter — the case was never presented. DPS released the video Oct. 22, after closure. Sgt. Foster resigned Oct. 23.
“Every case is thoroughly examined without fear or favor… In the case of a tie, the benefit of the doubt goes to our law enforcement officers. The men and women who wear the uniform have earned that.”
Both sentences from the same statement, Sept. 28, 2026. Quote them together; the pairing is the record’s own argument.
| Case | Date | Agency / Place | Determination |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kohen Kartier Wiley | Jun 14, 2026 | Senatobia PD · Senatobia | Declined — “justified” |
| Jaylen Lewis | Sep 25, 2022 | Capitol Police · Jackson | Indicted — manslaughter |
| Walker / Rhinewalt incident | Aug 2022 | Capitol Police · Jackson | Indicted — aggravated assault |
| Laurel officer incident | Oct 23, 2023 | Laurel PD · Laurel | Indicted (2026) |
| Tyrone Jones | Jul 25, 2022 | Mississippi | No located determination |
| Unnamed — Senatobia fatal | Oct 23, 2022 | Senatobia PD · Senatobia | No located determination |
| Latasha Smith | Dec 11, 2022 | Capitol Police · Jackson | No located determination |
| Unnamed — Union County fatal | Jun 3, 2023 | Union County | No located determination |
| Jeremiah Ladner | Jul 13, 2023 | Mississippi | No located determination |
| Unnamed — Winston / Neshoba | Jan 26, 2025 | Winston / Neshoba | No located determination |
| Trey Reed | Sep 15, 2025 | Delta State University | Contested death |
| Damien Cameron | — | Mississippi | Contested death |
| Keith Murriel | — | Mississippi | Contested death |
| Rasheem Carter | — | Mississippi | Contested death |
| Dexter Wade | — | Jackson | Contested death |
| Nolan Wells | — | Mississippi | Contested death |
The six “no located determination” rows are stated in the narrowed form the record supports: no determination located in searched sources — never “she never ruled.” The six contested deaths carry the official ruling and the family’s contest side by side, both attributed; in none of the six did the search locate a public statement, investigation, or review by the Attorney General’s office. No manner conclusion is asserted for any of them, anywhere.
- Verified49 announced outcomes located
- VerifiedThe Gap — 86 claimed / 49 located / ≥37 unannounced
- VerifiedTie-break quote (Sept. 28, 2026)
- VerifiedKohen non-presentation quote + § 45-1-6(10)
- VerifiedFoster resigned Oct. 23 · video released Oct. 22
- VerifiedLipscomb → RAGA counsel + RLDF head · Luckey → DPS Commissioner
- F-Flagged$3,553,260 cash on hand (CY2025) — reported tier; filing pull outstanding
- UnmeasuredLaw-enforcement money — assert nothing, either direction
- UnverifiedContents of the Reed independent-autopsy report — never released
- Retracted“No fatal shooting has produced an indictment” — false (Lewis)
- CutThe name “(Donna Nolen)” — uncorroborated; never use
- $3,553,260 cash on hand, CY2025 annual report ($1,615,023 raised · $615,053 spent) — as reported from the filing; the certified pull is a standing request.
- RAGA, 2019: $150,000 direct + more than $76,000 in-kind via its Mississippi PAC — her 2019 campaign’s top contributor.
- Whitney Lipscomb — Deputy AG 2020–2025 → RAGA General Counsel and head of the Rule of Law Defense Fund.
- Bo Luckey — AG senior investigator for about a decade → Capitol Police chief → DPS Commissioner (Oct. 16, 2026). DPS houses MBI, which investigates the shootings.
- Fitch herself: RLDF Chair (elected Nov. 2022); RAGA Executive Committee (2022 · 2025 · 2026).
Proximity and pattern are documented. Causation is not claimed — no line here asserts any donor or network tie influenced any case.
- Records requests: 10 drafted + the Secretary of State filings pull · 0 filed — filing waits on the Chairman’s word. Priorities: the AGO determination log (all 86) · the six unannounced cases · the MBI case index.
- Decisions: 9 on the board · 1 ruled (the retarget — executed Oct. 24) · 8 open, incl. file-or-hold, the SOS pull owner, and the full-strength auditor re-run.
- Nov. 2: mass action, ~noon, AG’s office — 550 High Street, Suite 1200, Jackson. Nov. 1 is Kohen’s would-have-been 2nd birthday.
- Office: Walter Sillers Building, 550 High Street, Suite 1200, Jackson, MS 39201 · Mailing: P.O. Box 220, Jackson, MS 39205 · (601) 359-3680 · ago.state.ms.us
- Campaign committee, as publicly filed: “Lynn Fitch for Mississippi” — P.O. Box 698, Madison, MS 39130 (filings located 2011–2017; current cover sheet rides the outstanding SOS pull).
- 550 High Street, Suite 1200 is also the Nov. 2 action address.
The Final Editor — Preface
Every movement inherits two burdens: the burden of grief, and the burden of precision. Grief without precision becomes noise the powerful can outwait. Precision without grief becomes paperwork the powerful can file away. This statement carries both burdens — and where it stumbles, it stumbles the way love stumbles when it is in a hurry to protect a child.
So let the record be honored line by line. Where the statement speaks the truth, we say so, and we say why it cannot be answered. Where it reaches past what the record can carry — a word like “leaked,” a history asserted faster than it was documented — we correct it, not to weaken the cry but to armor it. A lie told for a righteous cause is still a lie, and the opposition needs only one to dismiss the whole. The facts here need no exaggeration. A one-year-old is dead. The state declined to let a grand jury hear it. The tape came out after the file was closed. The officer resigned. Sit with those facts — they are heavier than any adjective.
What follows is the statement as the coalition issued it, my notes in the margin of the record, and at the end, a word about what this document is for. Justice is what love looks like in public — and love, in public, must be able to survive cross-examination.
— The Final Editor’s Desk (written in the prophetic lens of Dr. Cornel West, as an analytical persona — see the note at the foot of this page)
The Statement — As Issued, October 21, 2026
Black Lives Matter Grassroots and Building Bridges Coalition
Condemns the “Justified” Determination in the Murder of Baby Kohen Wiley by Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch[1]
Black Lives Matter Grassroots condemns Attorney General Lynn Fitch’s determination that the murder of baby Kohen Wiley was “justified.” Senatobia cop Hunter Foster, who has a documented history of racism and violence,[2] shot the one-year-old dead in his mother’s arms on June 14, 2026 after she was falsely accused of failing to pay for a pack of diapers at Walmart.[3]
This is one of the most egregious and horrifying acts of anti-Black violence that we have seen from the police. Police should have never been called. The cop should never have shot. And the murder can never be justified. We have had enough of white supremacist systems terrorizing our communities, stealing Black lives, and justifying it.
The now-leaked bodycam footage[4] shows that Senatobia police immediately escalated by pulling their guns when approaching the vehicle occupied by Baby Kohen Wiley, his mother, and a friend. Murderous cop Hunter Foster shot into the car — striking the friend and killing Baby Kohen.[5] In his estimation, the life of a precious baby was worth less than a pack of diapers.
“What kind of world is this when the murder of a baby could ever be deemed ‘justified’? Senatobia police, Lynn Fitch, and Walmart all have blood on their hands and there must be consequences. They don’t get to murder our babies with impunity,” says Dr. Melina Abdullah of Black Lives Matter Grassroots.[6]
We condemn Walmart for calling police on a Black mother.
We condemn killer cop Hunter Foster for shooting a precious Black baby.[7]
We condemn the Senatobia Police Department for serving as a breeding ground for racist violence and greenlighting the killing and terrorization of Black people.
We condemn Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch for enabling police to kill — even babies — with absolute impunity.[8]
Memorials for Baby Kohen have already restarted. November 1st marks what should have been Baby Kohen’s second birthday. Black Lives Matter Grassroots and Building Bridges Coalition is planning a weekend of events with Baby Kohen’s family in Senatobia and Jackson to memorialize his short life, support community healing and empowerment, and rally for justice in Kohen’s name.
“Kohen’s entire family is in unimaginable pain. They should be celebrating his birthday, not mourning his death. The community is organizing and demanding accountability,” says Marquell Bridges, of the Building Bridges Coalition, who has been organizing alongside Kohen’s family since immediately following news of the killing.
In addition to mobilizing in Senatobia and Jackson from October 30th through November 2nd, Baby Kohen’s family, Black Lives Matter Grassroots and the Building Bridges Coalition is calling for community to:
- Boycott Walmart.
- Demand the firing of killer cop Hunter Foster.[9]
- Oppose Attorney General Lynn Fitch, especially in her bid for Mississippi Governor.
Plug in with @blmgrassroots on Instagram for next steps. Justice in the name of Baby Kohen Wiley!
Editorial Notes — The Record
StandsNote 1 — “the ‘justified’ determination”
The headline names the ruling by its public name. The office’s own words, October 19, 2026: “there is insufficient evidence of any criminal conduct to present this case to a grand jury. We are declining prosecution of this matter and will close the case accordingly.” Under Miss. Code § 45-1-6(10), the Attorney General is the exclusive presenter of these cases — no grand jury of Mississippians was ever asked. Keep the coalition’s word for the ruling; anchor it, whenever pressed, to her sentence.
Source: AG determination, Oct 19, 2026 · Miss. Code § 45-1-6(10) · CAN-SAY-V2 #1, #4
CorrectedNote 2 — “a documented history of racism and violence”
Stronger than the located record carries for Foster personally. What is documented: an internal complaint accused a Senatobia officer involved in this case of a racially offensive remark two days before the shooting (Mississippi Today, July 18, 2026); former Chief Vanderford was fired in September 2026 after reporting on repeated racial slurs; the coalition’s planning record names the slur history directly. Say the documented form — complaint, remark, department — and the claim becomes unanswerable instead of arguable.
Source: Mississippi Today, Jul 18, 2026 · Forensic Dossier, Lane A annex · CAN-SAY-V2 discipline: attribute, narrow, source
CorrectedNote 3 — “falsely accused of failing to pay for a pack of diapers”
Public reporting describes an alleged shoplifting call. “Falsely” rules on the accusation’s truth, which the located record does not settle. The sentence loses nothing as “accused of failing to pay” — the disproportion the statement is indicting is identical, and no fact-checker can touch it.
Source: The Guardian / Mississippi Free Press reporting, June 2026 · Verification Ledger
RetiredNote 4 — “the now-leaked bodycam footage”
The footage was not leaked. The Department of Public Safety released the body-camera and surveillance video on October 22, 2026 — three days after the Attorney General closed the case. The correction is also the stronger argument: a release after closure is not transparency. Every campaign surface has been swept of “leaked” (justiceforkohen.com, Oct 24).
Source: DPS release, Oct 22, 2026 · CAN-SAY-V2 #4 · Retired in v1; stays retired
StandsNote 5 — the footage account
The description of the approach — guns drawn on the vehicle; the shot into the car striking the friend and killing Kohen — is the coalition’s stated reading of the released footage, carried as such in reporting and in the October 21 statement itself. It stands as the coalition’s account, attributed. The underlying facts are not in dispute in the located record: Foster fired into the vehicle; Kohen was fatally shot; another person in the vehicle was injured.
Source: Coalition statement, Oct 21, 2026 · Guardian / Mississippi Free Press reporting
StandsNote 6 — the Abdullah quotation
Printed as issued. Note its architecture, because the apparatus below returns to it: the question form (“What kind of world is this…”) recruits the reader as witness before any demand is made — the moral verdict is reached by the reader, not handed to them.
Source: Statement as issued, Oct 21, 2026
OvertakenNote 7 — the condemnation of Foster
The condemnation stands; its object moved. Sergeant Foster resigned on October 23, 2026 — the interim chief resigned with him — and Kohen’s family has called for a federal civil-rights investigation. A resignation is not accountability: the standing demand, now live on justiceforkohen.com, is a full public accounting from the Senatobia Police Department — disciplinary record, use-of-force review, every officer’s role — and the family’s DOJ call.
Source: Reporting, Oct 23, 2026 · Forensic Dossier · CAN-SAY-V2 #4
StandsNote 8 — “enabling police to kill — even babies — with absolute impunity”
The coalition’s moral verdict — and the research now documents the mechanism it names. Exclusive-presenter statute; batch announcements without case-by-case reasoning; her office’s own tie-break, in her words: “In the case of a tie, the benefit of the doubt goes to our law enforcement officers” (September 28, 2026 — the same statement that promises review “without fear or favor”). Rhetoric this large must be able to point at a record this specific. Now it can.
Source: AG statement, Sept 28, 2026 · CAN-SAY-V2 #1, #7
SupersededNote 9 — “Demand the firing of killer cop Hunter Foster”
Overtaken by October 23. Do not reissue in this form. The current demand set — reject the determination, Senatobia must answer, publish the record, release everything — is carried on justiceforkohen.com and in the swept Nov. 2 release draft. Items 1 and 3 of the original call (boycott; oppose the Governor bid) stand unchanged.
Source: justiceforkohen.com (retargeted Oct 24, 2026) · Nov 2 release draft, swept
RetiredNote 10 — the working claim behind the campaign: “no wrongdoing found in any case” / “20 of 20 justified”
The planning record carried two numbers the research has since falsified — “she has not found wrongdoing in any other police violence cases” (agenda) and “every single one out of 20 cases she ruled them justified.” Both are retired, and this note is the review’s most important page. The located record: 49 announced outcomes — 46 justified-class and 3 incidents indicted, including a fatal case, Jaylen Lewis, whose officers were indicted for manslaughter (one acquittal, one hung jury, no retrial). Her office claims 86 concluded reviews, justified “in all but four” — leaving at least 37 with no located public announcement. The gap, stated whole, is the strongest sourced claim the campaign owns. The falsified versions must never be spoken again: one checkable error is all an opponent needs.
Source: Forensic Dossier, Lane A · Clarion Ledger, Sept 29, 2026 · CAN-SAY-V2 #2, #3, #5 (full form, assumption included)
Attributed onlyNote 11 — “at least 10 killed because Walmart called”
An agenda claim (with the John Crawford case behind it) that has not been door-checked against a located census. It may be spoken only as the coalition’s attributed claim, never as a stated fact, until the research team builds the list case by case.
Source: 10/22 planning agenda · Verification Ledger — open item
CorrectedNote 12 — the Governor’s name
The agenda’s “Tate Reid?” is Governor Tate Reeves. Small errors in working documents are how large errors get rehearsed. Corrected in every downstream document.
Source: Public record · corrected Oct 24, 2026
VerifyNote 13 — the media contact email
Marquell Bridges’ email is carried in the packet as “[email protected].” The spelling remains unverified as this edition publishes; if it is wrong, press replies go nowhere. One human check closes it — it is a standing decision item on the research board.
Source: Statement packet, Oct 21, 2026 · Co-Research Board, Decisions #7
UnconfirmedNote 14 — partner organizations
The Nov. 2 draft fragment in the packet names Movement for Black Lives, People’s Advocacy Institute, and NAACP alongside the hosts — and flags them itself: “need to confirm other orgs.” They are invited, not confirmed. No version of any release may name a partner as participating until that partner has confirmed.
Source: 10/22 planning agenda · Nov 2 release draft header flags
Craft Notes — Additions & Corrections of the Desk
How It Persuades
- The shared “we”
- Persuasion runs deepest inside a shared identity. The statement builds one relentlessly — “our babies,” “our communities,” a coalition speaking as a family enlarged. The reader is not asked to agree with an argument; they are asked whether they are inside the “we.”
- The privileged moment
- The birthday does the focusing work before any demand appears: November 1, a second birthday that will not happen. By the time the three calls to action arrive, attention is already where the statement needs it — on the child, on the date, on the absence.
- Commitment, in steps
- The asks are sequenced small-to-large: share and show up locally (Senatobia), then the boycott (a daily-life commitment), then the political demand (oppose the Governor bid). Each public yes makes the next one a matter of consistency.
- Social proof — motion already moving
- “Memorials have already restarted.” “The community is organizing.” The statement never asks anyone to be first; it asks them to join something underway — the strongest posture a mobilization text can take.
- Authority — moral, not credentialed
- The quoted authorities are the family and Dr. Abdullah — authority of proximity and grief, not of office. Against an Attorney General’s institutional authority, the statement counterposes the only authority that outranks it in public feeling: the mother’s.
How It Communicates
- Classic style — a window on a scene
- At its best the statement shows rather than argues: a car, a mother’s arms, a pack of diapers. Classic style treats prose as a window onto a world the reader can see — and a seen world is believed in a way an argued one is not. The concrete lines carry this document.
- Where abstraction taxes the reader
- “White supremacist systems terrorizing our communities” stacks abstract nouns where the concrete lines used verbs and objects. It preaches to the persuaded. The editor’s counsel is not to soften the claim but to cash it in visible coin first — the statement’s own strongest sentences already do.
- The curse of knowledge
- Insider shorthand — “plug in with @blmgrassroots,” movement vocabulary — assumes a reader who already knows. For the base that is efficiency; for the persuadable press reader it is a closed door. The statement serves two audiences with one text, and its clarity budget is spent on the first.
- Coherence — one thread, held
- The anaphora of “We condemn…” gives the document a single repeated branch, and Kohen’s name is the topic string never dropped. A reader can lose the thread of any paragraph and recover it at the next refrain — coherence engineered as rhythm.
- The editor’s sum
- Keep the scenes, the refrain, and the dates exactly as they are. Spend revision only where a claim outruns its evidence — Notes 2, 3, 4, and 10 — because in a text built on witness, factual precision is the style.
The Final Editor — Closing Word
Read this statement the way you would read a spiritual sung in a minor key: its power is not in its polish but in its refusal to look away. A baby was killed over an accusation about diapers, in a state whose soil carries 576 documented racial-terror lynchings in the old count, and the machinery of that state responded the way machinery does — it processed, it declined, it closed the file, and only then did it hand the family the pictures.
Against machinery, this document sets a birthday. That is its genius, and no editor should touch it: the movement answers the state’s calendar of closures with a family’s calendar of love — a second birthday, kept in public, in baby blue and orange, whether the state attends or not.
Our task is only to make sure that when this love speaks in public, every word it says can stand. Then it does not need us to make it louder. It needs us to make it unanswerable.
— The Final Editor’s Desk