Mississippi Declares Officer Justified in Fatal Shooting of Baby

The Mississippi Attorney General's Office has concluded that a police officer acted appropriately when he fired at a moving vehicle during a shoplifting response that killed 1-year-old Kohen Wiley in Senatobia, Mississippi, on June 14, 2026. The decision, announced Monday, October 19, leaves questions about the shooting unresolved for the child's family.

In a brief statement, Attorney General Lynn Fitch's office said the officer was justified in his use of force. The announcement did not name Kohen or identify the officer involved.

Local news outlet Action News 5 identified the officer as Hunter Foster, citing records obtained through a request concerning officer-involved shootings.

The shooting occurred in a Walmart parking lot in Senatobia, a city of approximately 8,000 residents about 40 miles south of Memphis. According to an initial statement from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, two adults and a child fled the store before driving toward officers at the scene.

The investigation's initial account referred to the child as a "juvenile child." The two adults were later identified as Kohen's mother and a family friend. An officer fired at the vehicle as it approached police, according to the bureau's statement.

An independent autopsy released by the family's legal team and reviewed by MS NOW raised questions about that account. The examination found that the bullet entered the side of Kohen's body. At a news conference during the summer, the family's attorneys also displayed a photograph showing the vehicle's passenger-side window almost entirely shattered.

Kohen's mother, Vellesiya Wiley, previously described the shooting at a news conference. She said the officer fired three to four shots, including after she raised Kohen to show officers that a baby was inside the vehicle.

Wiley said one bullet struck her son's rib cage while she held him in the passenger seat. MS NOW said it was unable to reach her for comment on Monday following the attorney general's announcement.

Ben Crump, the civil rights attorney representing the family, criticized the state's decision and questioned the absence of publicly available body-camera footage.

"How can anyone accept that conclusion when Kohen's family and the public still have not been allowed to see the body-camera footage?" Crump said.

Crump argued that releasing the recordings would allow the public to assess the state's conclusion. The family has continued seeking answers about the circumstances surrounding the shooting.

"If the footage supports the state's decision, release it," Crump said.

He also emphasized that the family's legal effort would continue as it seeks a fuller account of the incident.

"We will not stop fighting until this family gets the truth," Crump said.

Mississippi Today and The New York Times previously reported allegations that Foster made racist remarks toward two coworkers. One coworker was Black, while the other was white and had a child with a Black partner.

Martin Zummach, an attorney identified by The New York Times as representing Foster, declined to answer MS NOW's questions about the case and ended the phone call, the outlet reported.

Representatives for the attorney general's office, the Senatobia Police Department and Senatobia Mayor Greg Graves did not respond to MS NOW's requests for comment. Graves had previously acknowledged the community's "tremendous pain" in a video statement issued several days after the killing.

At Kohen's funeral, the family remembered him as "goofy" and described his affection for the cartoon character Bluey. NBC News reported that he was a beloved child whose family had looked forward to his future.