The fatal shooting of a 1-year-old boy by police at a Walmart in Mississippi has sparked protests and demands for transparency in the state’s investigation after other incidents in the community in recent years have sown distrust with law enforcement.Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.Some Senotobia residents told NBC News that they believe the local police department has escalated interactions with the public that generated unnecessary arrests or uses of force.The shooting Sunday in a Walmart parking lot that led to the boy’s death is only the latest instance that residents say must result in better police training.“We lost a child because of carelessness, recklessness of the police,” said Breshari Faulkner, 27, who was born in Senatobia, a town of 8,500 people about 40 miles south of Memphis, Tennessee.“This was going to eventually end up with them killing someone because they overreact on small things that shouldn’t escalate,” added Faulker, who was handcuffed on the ground by Senatobia police in the same Walmart parking lot in May 2025 during an incident over a handicap parking space that was caught on police body camera.On Sunday, Faulkner was at a Little Caesars across the highway from the Walmart when shots rang out at about 2:05 p.m.
At first, she thought the noise was due to a tornado siren, but eventually, she said, she saw other police cars racing around the curb to get to the store.Someone burst into the restaurant, she said, warning, “‘Y’all need to get out, y’all need to get out.
They’re shooting at the Walmart.’”Senatobia police were at the Walmart to respond to a call about an alleged shoplifting and encountered two people with a child fleeing from the store into a vehicle, state investigators said after the shooting.The officers “attempted to stop the vehicle, but the driver drove in the direction of the officers, almost striking one,” investigators...