Federal agents arrested a man in Huntsville, Alabama, on Monday, three days after someone set fire to the police station in Senatobia, Mississippi. The department is the one whose sergeant shot and killed Kohen Wiley, a Black 1-year-old, in a Walmart parking lot on June 14. No one has been charged for that.
Court records describe the fire as federal arson. Prosecutors allege that Garrick Rex Rawls broke into the station with a hammer at about 4:30 a.m. on Oct. 31, wearing a mask, poured flammable liquid in the lobby and lit it. They say the blaze exploded and injured his leg, and that he left behind a boot, latex gloves, a hammer and a gas can nozzle. Firefighters put the fire out quickly. Rawls is charged but has not been tried, and a detention hearing is set for 11:30 a.m. Thursday in Huntsville.
The filing also says Rawls “had been an active participant in local protests and vigils following the death of 1-year-old Kohen Wiley.” Officials had earlier said they saw no link between the fire and the shooting. Nothing published so far says what he intended.
The ATF, the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, the state fire marshal and Homeland Security joined the search, and the state offered a $5,000 reward. Interim Chief LaMorris Hampton said the department remains “dedicated to fulfilling our responsibilities with professionalism, integrity, and transparency.”
Setting fire to a police station is a serious crime, and nothing here excuses it. Nothing about it changes what happened on June 14 either. Mississippi’s attorney general found the shooting by Sgt. Hunter Foster justified and declined to charge him. Foster, who fired into a car while officers chased two women accused of taking diapers and baby clothes, has resigned. The city fired its police chief in September. Kohen’s family and their lawyers, including Ben Crump, say the shot from the side was not justified, and they have asked the Justice Department to open its own investigation.
That is the gap Black Mississippians can see. A building burned on Saturday and federal agents had a name by Monday. A child was killed in June, and the state’s answer was that no crime occurred. The department will now ask for sympathy as a victim, and it will deserve it for the damage. It still has not answered for the child.
The Justice Department has not said whether it will review Kohen’s death. The family’s request is the next decision that matters, and it should not take longer than an arrest.
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