Families, supporters March for Justice for Stolen Lives

On Sept. 12, families who have lost loved ones at the hands of police joined with supporters for a three-mile march and car caravan on University Ave., from St. Paul’s Western Police District to the Minnesota State Capitol, to demand justice for all stolen lives.
In its sixth year, the annual march was organized by Toshira Garraway, founder of Families Supporting Families Against Police Violence.
Some impacted families travel for miles to be in community together. This year’s march brought Daveon Williams, the father of one-year-old Kohen Wiley, and community activist Marquell Bridges to Minnesota from the state of Mississippi. Baby Kohen was in a vehicle with his mother outside a Walmart on June 14, 2026, when Senatobia, Miss., police, who were allegedly responding to a shoplifting call, fatally shot the baby.
According to a Sept. 2 statement by the family’s attorney Ben Crump, former Senatobia police chief Harold Vanderford has since been fired for using racial slurs in text messages. And Sergeant Hunter Foster, the officer named as the subject of the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation (MBI)’s investigation, was accused in an internal complaint of making a racially offensive remark toward a Black officer just two days before Kohen was killed. Baby Kohen was Black. Findings from the MBI investigation have now been turned over to the Mississippi Attorney General’s office.
“I honestly don’t want to say another [expletive] name,” said Bridges at the march. Kohen’s mother and father are 21 and 20 years old, respectively, he said. “These babies lost their baby.”
Kohen’s father said simply, “Justice for Kohen Wiley.”
The stories described by these families often share a number of commonalities – demands for unreleased surveillance and body camera footage, inaction by law enforcement, lack of transparency, answers and accountability, a quickly cemented “official” narrative that is at odds with evidence and eyewitness accounts, and even cover-ups (see the Messenger article, “The anatomy of a cover-up,” March 2022).
Amir Locke’s family traveled from Chicago and Nebraska to attend the march, as they have done every year since Locke’s life was taken in a botched no-knock warrant raid in February 2022. Despite an official report that called Locke a suspect, he was not named in the warrant.
Locke’s aunt Linda Tyler said they got 56 body cam videos, which are now featured in the documentary, “No Knock – No Charge? The Amir Locke Story.” The film challenges the police narrative while giving a close look at the attitudes of police and other MPD employees while on the job.
“When something happens, demand the footage… And don’t believe the narrative,” said Tyler.
She also implored people gathered to keep showing up – to marches, rallies or council meetings – and to keep saying their names.
“Even if it’s one person or two person, you show up. So that they never forget that baby’s name,” Tyler said.
Karen Wells, Locke’s mother, said her son’s murder meant he couldn’t finish his work, his music, his clothing line or the shoe he designed. She said Baby Kohen’s father looks like Amir when he passed away – same hair and stature.
“Don’t you let them ever control the narrative. You speak, baby, you speak. When you don’t feel like speakin’, it doesn’t matter. Just do it for him,” she told Williams. “But when you can’t speak for him, I got you. I’m gonna speak for you. I’m gonna speak for his mother… you look like my baby, and that’s devastating to me, what they did. And I know what you’re goin’ through. You’re young. It’s gonna be devastating for you, but don’t give up.”
For some families, violence came in the form of police inaction.
In September 2025, Simone Hunter’s sister Mariah Samuels was shot and killed by her ex-boyfriend, who was still threatening her 21 days after she had filed a police report to get a restraining order against him. Samuels had made repeated calls to Minneapolis police about these threats. Although her killer was sentenced in April 2026 to life in prison without parole, questions remain as to how police addressed a man who had a history of domestic violence and was armed.
Hunter described the horrors of seeing images of her sister on the screen during the murder trial.
“We carry a rage that I don’t think ever can be quelled,” said Hunter.
Samuels’ circumstances bear similarities to the death of Allison Lussier and the non-fatal shooting of Davis Moturi in Minneapolis. Each had repeatedly notified authorities about threats before becoming victims. In February 2024, Lussier was found dead in her apartment just 12 days after she had warned police that her abuser was going to kill her. In October 2024, Moturi was shot by a neighbor after months of reporting violent threats and harassment by him. A lengthy city auditor’s report released in April 2026 was highly critical of how Minneapolis police handled these cases.
Garraway created Families Supporting Families six years ago to provide impacted families the kind of support that wasn’t available to her when she needed it. In August 2009, her fiancé Justin Teigen was found dead in a recycling dumpster after a foot chase with St. Paul police. According to an October 2023 report by The Reinvestigation Workgroup, a volunteer investigative group, there was biased language in the autopsy report and discrepancies between the police report, medical records and video footage.
Garraway often speaks of being harassed by the police while she was grieving the loss of her fiancé and raising their young baby as a single mother.
“They didn’t realize when they was stalkin’ me, when they was sittin’ outside my house, that they put a fight inside of me – and inside of all of you – that they can never take from [any] one of us,” said Garraway to the crowd.
“We refuse to be quiet.”
Families Supporting Families Against Police Violence is on Facebook.