{"id":344947,"date":"2026-07-19T02:44:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T02:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/344947\/"},"modified":"2026-07-19T02:44:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T02:44:10","slug":"orlando-vigil-demands-justice-for-kohen-wiley-and-all-victims-of-police-crimes-fight-back-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/344947\/","title":{"rendered":"Orlando vigil demands justice for Kohen Wiley and all victims of police crimes \u2014 Fight Back! News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/E6HOYJFy.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"Vigil for Kohen Wiley. | Fight Back! News\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Orlando, FL \u2013 On Tuesday, July 14, a dozen members of the Orlando community gathered at Lake Eola for a vigil marking one month since an officer with the Senatobia Police Department in Mississippi shot and killed one-year-old Kohen Wiley.<\/p>\n<p>The event was organized by Orlando Against Police Crimes to remember Wiley\u2019s life, cut short by police violence, and to echo the family&#8217;s call for transparency, accountability and justice for their baby boy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWiley never had a chance to grow up to experience any number of things that we all take for granted on a daily basis \u2013 never got to form any childhood memories, never got to experience being a kid,\u201d said Richard Thomas, member of Orlando Against Police Crimes.<\/p>\n<p>Those who spoke made connections between this police shooting and several others that have happened in Orlando at the hands of Orlando Police Department and the Orange County Sheriff&#8217;s Office. In particular, deadly incidents that occurred outside of Walmarts due to suspected theft.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOn February 19, 16-year-old Jairus Jones was shot and killed at a Walmart in Poinciana by an off-duty Osceola County deputy. Just three days later, Jason Anthony Beal, age 48, was shot by Orange County Sheriff\u2019s Office deputies and taken to a hospital for his injuries. Both Jones and Beal were suspected of shoplifting.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The group gathered under the Florida rain to hear speeches from various activists and sang songs of unity and perseverance, led by the Orlando Singing Resistance.<\/p>\n<p>Before leaving, those in attendance called for local accountability by committing themselves to the ongoing campaign to reinstate the Orlando Civilian Police Review Board. They laid flowers at the foot of a large poster of Kohen Wiley and used tea light candles to spell out the word \u201cJustice.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/fightbacknews.org\/tag:OrlandoFL\" class=\"hashtag\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">#OrlandoFL<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/fightbacknews.org\/tag:FL\" class=\"hashtag\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">#FL<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/fightbacknews.org\/tag:InjusticeSystem\" class=\"hashtag\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">#InjusticeSystem<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/fightbacknews.org\/tag:KohenWiley\" class=\"hashtag\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">#KohenWiley<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/fightbacknews.org\/tag:KillerCop\" class=\"hashtag\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">#KillerCop<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Orlando, FL \u2013 On Tuesday, July 14, a dozen members of the Orlando community gathered at Lake Eola&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":344948,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[139,141,140],"class_list":["post-344947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}