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Major Takeaways
- Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch announced on Monday that the Senatobia officer who shot and killed 1 year old Kohen Wiley will not face criminal charges.
- Kohen was killed on June 14 in a Walmart parking lot during a shoplifting call about diapers, while his mother held him inside a car.
- His family disputes the police account of that day, and the video of the shooting still has not been released to the public.
- The decision lands weeks after Senatobia fired its police chief over racist text messages that surfaced in the wake of the shooting.
1. The State Closes Its Case
The Mississippi Attorney General’s office announced on Monday that it has completed its review of the June 14 shooting in Senatobia.
In that review, the office found that the use of force by a Senatobia police officer was justified.
“Today, the Office of the Attorney General announced it has completed the review of a June 14, 2026 incident in Senatobia involving one officer with the Senatobia Police Department,” the statement read. “In this incident, the Attorney General’s Office found the use of force was justified.”
The review followed an investigation by the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, the state agency that examines officer involved shootings.
Five state agents gathered witness statements and reviewed body camera, dash camera, and Walmart surveillance video from that day.
The finding means the officer will not face criminal charges, four months after the shooting.
The announcement did not name the officer, and it did not lay out the evidence behind the decision.
It also remains unclear whether a full written report will be made public, or what the decision means for the job of the officer, who has been on administrative leave since June.
2. What Happened in That Parking Lot
On June 14, officers in Senatobia answered a shoplifting call at the town’s Walmart, in a community of about 8,000 people some 40 miles south of Memphis.
The call accused Kohen’s mother, Vellesiya Wiley, and his great aunt, Latoya Ferrell, of stealing a pack of diapers and baby clothing.
As officers arrived, the two women left the store with Kohen and got into a car to leave the parking lot.
Kohen’s mother lifted him up to show the officers that a baby was inside the car.
State investigators said the driver drove in the direction of the officers, almost striking one, and that an officer then fired into the vehicle as it fled the scene.
Kohen was struck while sitting in the lap of his mother. Ferrell was also shot and wounded.
Kohen was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
3. The Family Tells a Different Story
Vellesiya Wiley has denied from the beginning that she or Ferrell stole anything, and she disputes that the car ever drove toward the officers.
“They told us that, but they have not showed us that,” family attorney Ben Crump said in the days after the shooting, rejecting the claim that the encounter was a matter of life and death.
Neither woman has been charged with any crime, and officials have released no evidence of shoplifting.
An independent autopsy presented by Crump on July 1 found that Kohen died of a gunshot wound to the torso.
The bullet entered his body from the right side, not from the front, a detail the family says undercuts the claim that the car was bearing down on officers.
The one record that could settle the dispute, the video, remains out of public view.
Officials held the body camera, dash camera, and surveillance footage while the investigation was open.
A state public safety spokesperson has now said the surveillance video will be released to news organizations through public records requests in short order.
4. A Department Already in Turmoil
The officer at the center of the review was identified in state investigation records as Sgt. Hunter Foster of the Senatobia Police Department.
Foster, who is white, was placed on administrative leave on June 16, two days after the shooting.
Reporting on internal department complaints later showed that Foster had been accused of making a racially offensive remark to a Black officer two days before Kohen was killed.
He had also faced misconduct accusations in two earlier court cases. One was dismissed, and the other ended in a confidential settlement.
In September, the Senatobia Board of Aldermen voted unanimously to fire Police Chief Harold Vanderford.
The firing followed reporting that revealed racist text messages in which Vanderford repeatedly used racial slurs, including after he became chief.
Crump said at the time that removing the chief “does not answer the question Kohen’s family has been asking since June 14: what happened to their baby?”
5. Grief, Protest, and a Demand That Remains
Senatobia has not been quiet since June.
A rally filled the sidewalk outside City Hall on June 16 to demand the release of the footage, and protesters outside the Walmart were met with tear gas.
On June 26, a multiracial crowd marched through town carrying Kohen’s name through the streets.
The grief was still raw on Monday, hours after the announcement.
“There is blood on your hands,” said Marquell Bridges, president of the Building Bridges Coalition. “Not just Hunter Foster, but everyone that is complicit.”
For Black families in Senatobia, this case has become about far more than one call gone wrong.
A shoplifting call about baby supplies ended with a child dead in the arms of his mother, and the state has now said the officer who fired committed no crime.
The criminal case is closed. The family fight for answers is not, and the public still has not seen the video that could show what happened in those final seconds.
Read more in our News coverage, read our coverage of the federal investigation into the DC jail, and visit Urban City Podcast for more stories.
