Garrick Rawls

Introduction

Garrick Rawls is a Huntsville, Alabama man who describes himself on social media as a civil rights activist, and who had become a visible presence in Senatobia, Mississippi following the police shooting of a one-year-old boy there. On November 2, 2026 he was charged with a federal arson offense in connection with the Halloween-day fire that damaged the Senatobia Police Department headquarters — a building that had been the target of months of protest after an officer fatally shot a child during a traffic stop. Prosecutors have not outlined a motive, and Rawls faces the charge under a presumption of innocence .

Background Information

Senatobia, a small Mississippi town, spent the second half of 2026 in turmoil after one of its police officers fired his gun into a moving vehicle during a shoplifting call in June, killing one-year-old Kohen Wiley, who was riding in the vehicle with his mother. The mother was unharmed; her friend was seriously injured; both women denied stealing anything, and no charges were filed against them. A state investigation found no criminal wrongdoing by the officer, but the boy’s family has argued the use of force was unjustified, and protests followed in the months after the shooting. Rawls, based in Huntsville more than 220 miles away, described himself on social media as a civil rights activist, and a federal law enforcement affidavit later described him as “a civil rights activist who has been extremely active in the Senatobia community following the death of Kohen Wiley” .

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Charged; presumption of innocence. Rawls faces an untested federal charge and is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty; prosecutors have not outlined a motive.

On the night of Friday, October 30, 2026, Rawls attended a candlelit vigil for Kohen Wiley in Senatobia — he can be seen in another activist’s social-media video from the vigil, according to an affidavit signed by ATF Special Agent Joshua Garrett. The next day, Halloween, a fire damaged the Senatobia Police Department headquarters .

The investigation moved quickly. Community members helped investigators identify Rawls, and when Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents found him in Huntsville on Monday he was wearing a large bandage and walking with a limp, according to the affidavit. That same day, Monday, November 2, he was charged with arson — a federal offense — in connection with the police headquarters fire. The arrest made the activism the affidavit itself documented — his attendance at the vigil the night before the fire, his prominence in the Wiley case — part of the evidence trail against him .

Public Reaction and Consequences

The charge landed amid the tensions the fire had inflamed: a police department that had spent months as the object of protest over a child’s death, now itself the target of an arson its investigators tied to a self-described activist who had joined the mourning for the dead boy the night before. The Associated Press’s reporting on the charge circulated nationally through its member papers. Federal prosecutors did not announce any connection between the fire and the Wiley family or the wider protest movement, and the affidavit’s own account stops at Rawls’s presence at the vigil and his identification by community members .

No public statement from Rawls or an attorney representing him was reported at the time of the charge. The investigation — run through the ATF’s New Orleans field division, which released photos of agents at the burned headquarters — remains the operative record of the case.

Current Status

Rawls is charged with a federal arson offense for the October 31, 2026 fire at the Senatobia Police Department and was identified and charged on November 2, 2026. Prosecutors have not outlined a motive, no trial date has been reported, and the state’s finding of no criminal wrongdoing in the underlying officer-involved shooting stands unchanged. The ATF investigation that produced the affidavit remains the public record of the government’s evidence .

Impact on Their Career/Life

Rawls built his public identity on the Senatobia cause — an out-of-town activist whose social media presented him as a voice for accountability after a baby’s death — and the federal arson charge now defines that public identity instead. The charge also risks poisoning the cause he attached himself to: an activist’s alleged fire at the very institution the protest movement targeted hands the department and its defenders a new story, and the movement’s own vigil appears in the government’s affidavit. Whatever the court decides, the space Rawls occupied in the Wiley case — mourner, activist, presence — is now occupied by a defendant .

Sources

• “Activist charged with setting fire to embattled Mississippi police department” — The Associated Press (via The Morning Call) source