The fatal police shooting of Kohen Wiley, a 1-year-old Black infant, sparked painful conversations about the value of Black lives in America. On June 14th, his mother, Vellesiya Wiley, visited a Walmart in Senatobia, Mississippi, to pick up some diapers. As they were leaving the store, an employee stopped them and accused her friend of shoplifting. Because it had nothing to do with her, she kept walking and waited for her friend in the car. Someone at the store notified authorities of a suspected theft, leading police to block their car from leaving. Even though Vellesiya was lifting her baby to show he was inside, an officer discharged their weapon three or four times into the vehicle, shooting the child in the ribcage and critically injuring their family friend. While state investigators claimed they drove toward the police officers, placing them in danger, the mother has disputed their description of the events leading up to the shooting.

After a petty theft allegation turned deadly, we’re left to consider why America’s legal system seems to prioritize property over Black lives. Breshari Faulkner, a 27-year-old Senatobia resident, survived an encounter with local police in the same Walmart parking lot on Mother’s Day last year, when a dispute over a handicap parking space led officers to handcuff her and threaten to tase her in front of her children. In this case, she said, “We lost a child because of the carelessness and recklessness of the police.” In Mississippi, the penalty for petit larceny, defined as stealing property valued under $1,000, is a misdemeanor carrying a maximum sentence of six months in jail and a fine. Nowhere in the United States does the law authorize the death penalty for those accused of, or even convicted of, theft. So when police officers use deadly force to apprehend those they suspect of shoplifting, they’ve effectively carried out an extrajudicial punishment that far outweighs the legal parameters. Yet few officers are held accountable for fatally shooting Black people suspected of theft, or innocent bystanders.

The fatal police shooting of Kohen Wiley highlights a systemic problem — that property is often valued above and beyond Black lives. While many would deny this in the abstract, racial disparities in the use of force persist. “Black suspects are more than twice as likely to be killed by police than are persons of other racial or ethnic groups; even when there are no other obvious circumstances during the encounter that would make the use of deadly force reasonable” (Fagan & Campbell, 2020). Likewise, research published in Race and Justice suggests “the threshold for being perceived as dangerous, and thereby falling victim to lethal police force, appears to be higher for White civilians relative to their Black and Hispanic peers” (DeAngelis, 2024). These findings suggest that Black lives are valued less than White lives because the standard for judging the reasonableness of lethal force is tainted by racial bias.

Throughout America’s history, Black lives have often been devalued relative to property. For instance, in 1882, a mob of White locals killed N. David Lee, a Black man in Franklin Parish, Louisiana, who locals accused of stealing a hog. According to the Equal Justice Initiative, a Black man named Caesar Sheffield was killed by a mob of White men near Lake Park, Georgia, in April 1915, after being accused of stealing meat from a smokehouse. Locals deprived him of due process by removing him from the jail, which local law enforcement had left unguarded, and then fatally shot the husband and father in a nearby field. Authorities found his lifeless body the next day. Their report noted, “the deep racial hostility that permeated American society burdened Black people with a presumption of guilt that often served to focus suspicion on Black communities after a crime was discovered, whether evidence supported that suspicion or not.” While the legal standard during Jim Crow didn’t authorize officials to kill a Black person suspected of theft, that didn’t stop the culture of racism from depriving Black citizens of justice. In these cases, the accusation that they stole meat led to lynchings, which are extrajudicial killings.

On October 3, 1974, a Memphis police officer fatally shot Edward Garner, a 15-year-old Black teenager, in the back of the head as he fled the scene of a suspected $10 theft. This tragic case, highlighted in Tennessee v. Garner (1985), led the Supreme Court to hold that “such force may not be used unless it is necessary to prevent the escape and the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or officers.” Justices noted that the officer “saw no sign of a weapon” indicating an imminent threat. While the state law granted police the authority to pursue someone they suspected of committing a crime using “all necessary means,” the Supreme Court determined that this standard for the use of lethal force violated citizens’ Fourth Amendment rights. “Where the suspect poses no immediate threat to the officer and no threat to others, the harm resulting from failing to apprehend him does not justify the use of deadly force to do so,” the justices noted.

In the case of the fatal shooting of Kohen Wiley, a one-year-old child, it’s clear he didn’t pose a threat to the officers, nor was he a suspect. The outcome of this case, whether the criminal justice system will hold the police officer who fired into the vehicle accountable for his death, will likely hinge upon the perception of threat, specifically whether the driver, the unnamed family friend, intended to physically harm police officers with their vehicle. Mississippi officials claimed police acted legally because the driver “drove in the direction of the officers,” but the Wiley family has argued the driver was backing up, not driving toward the officers. Ben Crump, the family’s attorney, said, “A 1-year-old child is dead because police officers in Mississippi opened fire on a car in a crowded Walmart parking lot. Kohen Wiley was a baby. His mother, who has not been charged with any crime, says she was trying to communicate with officers that there was a baby in the car. They fired anyway,” he noted, adding that they will be seeking justice through the courts. While authorities have placed the officer on administrative leave, no arrests have been made in connection with the shooting.

Material goods should not be considered more valuable than a Black person’s life. And yet, Black Americans live in a country where police and others have used lethal force after suspecting someone of theft. For instance, a jury recently found Chikei Rick Chow, a South Carolina convenience store owner, not guilty after fatally shooting a 14-year-old Black teenager, Cyrus Carmack-Belton, accused of stealing four water bottles in 2023. Although witnesses noted they “did not see anything in Cyrus’s hands while he was running from the store,” and video footage proved he had returned the water bottles, the jury still acquitted Chow on the grounds of self-defense, believing the claim that the teenager pulled out a weapon during the chase, a point disputed by prosecutors who noted he was shot in the back while running away. Like the death of Kohen Wiley, this tragic case sparked criticism that America’s criminal justice system values material goods over Black lives. According to Dr. Kimberly Barsamian Kahn, a Social Psychology professor, “stereotypes can influence when force is used, how quickly, and ultimately the amount of force and decisions to shoot.”

If you were to ask the average American what matters more, material goods or the lives of Black people, most would likely tell you the latter. Yet, research indicates the probability of being Black, unarmed, and shot by police is 3.49 times the probability of white people who are unarmed (Ross, 2015). Discussions surrounding these cases often overlook the explicit and implicit bias of police officers responding to suspected theft. Some say “stop stealing,” or “just comply,” without considering that White people accused of committing crimes are less likely to be killed. Kohen Wiley was a baby who didn’t steal anything, yet he lost his life because the goal of catching a suspected thief was prioritized over public safety. It’s a heartbreaking case to say the least. Taking a photo of the license plate or using security and traffic cameras to locate someone suspected of theft is more humane than desperately firing a weapon in a crowded parking lot. And yet our country’s legal system has often valued property over Black lives.