Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

How Many Ways Can You Avoid Reporting That Cops Killed a Baby?
Janine Jackson 
24 Jun 2026
🖨️ Print Article
Kohen Wiley

A one-year-old baby was shot dead by police, but corporate media shield the police and their barbaric actions with a passive voice.

Originally published in FAIR.

“One-Year-Old Boy Killed After Officer Fires at Vehicle in Mississippi,” said the New York Times headline (6/16/26). So, a “one-year-old boy”—what most people would call a baby—was “killed after” a police officer fired at a vehicle, but there’s no verb you could use to connect those two things?

The Times subhed continued that pacifying work:

It is not entirely clear what led up to the shooting, but the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation said that police officers were responding to a shoplifting call.

“Ohh, shoplifting…!” we’re evidently supposed to say, before turning the page; that might make the baby murder make sense. I don’t need to say that baby was Black.

There will be more coverage of this heartbreaking, infuriating news about cops in Senatobia, Mississippi, called to the five-alarm crisis of someone purportedly shoplifting diapers, opening fire into a car whose driver “allegedly drove toward them.”

But in the meantime, please think hard about reporting that tells you to calm down, that suggests that, just maybe, nothing wrong happened at all. As ABC News (6/18/26) put it in a piece on how the “officer involved in shooting outside Walmart that killed 1-year-old boy” has been placed on leave: “One-year-old Kohen Wiley was killed, according to the family’s attorney.”

So maybe he’s not dead? Or he died from something other than the gun of the “involved officer”? Caution in reporting is valuable, but when it’s mainly deployed to protect the inflicters of state violence (FAIR.org, 7/11/16), you have to ask if it’s really a principle at all.

Police
Police Killings
Corporate Media
media bias

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


Related Stories

Community Movement Builders - Newark
CMB Newark Statement on the Killing of Wali Bey by Newark Police
04 March 2026
The media cycle has moved on, but the family of Wali ‘Grillz’ Bey is still waiting for answers after his murder by Newark Police.
Aja Arnold
From the Atlanta Race Massacre to Cop City: The AJC Incites Harm
16 July 2025
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution never stopped printing racist lies—it just upgraded its fonts.
Jon Jeter
As the State’s Complexion Darkens, Minnesota’s Liberalism Wanes
18 June 2025
Minnesota’s progressive myth shatters as its racial gaps in income, education, and housing eclipse even Deep South states, and right wing white
Black Alliance For Peace
Oppression Breeds Resistance, Organization Sustains It
11 June 2025
Defeating the war on Black/African people requires solidarity with all who are oppressed and resistance against our common enemy.
Tunde Osazua
Surveilled and Controlled: The High-Tech War on Working Class Black Atlantans
20 November 2024
Under the shield of public safety, Atlanta's police and political leaders have turned it into the most surveilled city in the country, where Bl
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
How to Protest for Sonya Massey
31 July 2024
Sonya Massey’s brutal murder at the hands of the police has resulted in anguish and anger but no differ
Pan-African Community Action PACA 2568)
Pan-African Community Action Condemns the U.S. Settler State for the Murder of Sonya Massey
31 July 2024
The murder of Sonya Massey by the Illinois police is a symptom of a larger, deeply rooted, systemic assault on Black and Brown working-class co
Cartoon comic about mass shottings
Danny Shaw
Murder Thy Neighbor A Recap of Mass Shootings in 2023: An Anti-Imperialist Perspective
20 December 2023
Mass shootings have become ubiquitous in the US, as part of a gun-obsessed culture that manufactures and exports violence around the world.
Believe Absolutely Nothing the US Government and Media Say About ...Anything
Glen Ford , BAR executive editor
Believe Absolutely Nothing the US Government and Media Say About ...Anything
02 August 2023
It is true now just as when Glen Ford wrote these words in
The Honey Trap: The FBI Used an Undercover Cop With Pink Hair to Spy on Activists and Manufacture Crimes
Trevor Aaronson
The Honey Trap: The FBI Used an Undercover Cop With Pink Hair to Spy on Activists and Manufacture Crimes
29 March 2023
In 2020 law enforcement continued their practice spying on activist groups and attempting to entrap them.

More Stories


  • John Parker "People Speak Out to Stop War, Racism and World War III" in Harlem on January 13
    John Parker , Margaret Kimberley , BAR editor and senior columnist , Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    John Parker "People Speak Out to Stop War, Racism and World War III" in Harlem on January 13
    10 Jan 2023
    John Parker is coordinator of the Harriet Tubman Center for Social Justice in Los Angeles and a leading member of the Socialist Unity Party. He is also a member of the Black Alliance for Peace who…
  • Black Agenda Radio January 6, 2023
    Black Agenda Radio , Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio January 6, 2023
    06 Jan 2023
    The latest in Mumia Abu Jamal's defense, the UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent and its connection to the Durban conference, and a new book “Sanctions: A Wrecking Ball in a Global…
  • Mumia Abu Jamal Continues His Fight for Freedom
    Black Agenda Radio , Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Mumia Abu Jamal Continues His Fight for Freedom
    06 Jan 2023
    Johanna Fernandez is an Associate Professor of history at Baruch College, and a longtime advocate for political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal. She joins us from New York City to discuss the loss of his…
  • UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent and the Durban Declaration Program of Action
    Black Agenda Radio , Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent and the Durban Declaration Program of Action
    06 Jan 2023
    Efia Nwangaza discusses her participation in the first session of the UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent, a mechanism that emerged from the 2001 Durban world conference against racism.
  • Sanctions: A Wrecking Ball in a Global Economy
    Black Agenda Radio , Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Sanctions: A Wrecking Ball in a Global Economy
    06 Jan 2023
    Sara Flounders joins us to discuss her work as editor of the newly published anthology, 'Sanctions: A Wrecking Ball in a Global Economy.' The book is an analysis of U.S. unilateral coercive measures…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us