6 min read
Major Takeaways
Hunter Foster, the Senatobia officer who shot and killed Kohen Wiley, has resigned from the police department.
The board of aldermen accepted his resignation on October 21, and the resignation took effect at once.
The state has now released body camera video, surveillance video, and a heavily redacted incident report.
The family of Kohen Wiley still rejects the ruling that the shooting was justified and wants a federal review.
The Senatobia police officer who shot and killed Kohen Wiley has resigned from the department.
Mayor Greg Graves confirmed on Friday that Hunter Foster is no longer employed by the city.
The board of aldermen accepted the resignation on October 21, and it took effect immediately.
For days, neither the city nor the police department would say whether Foster still had a job.
That silence ended on Friday, four days after the state cleared him of criminal wrongdoing.
Kohen Wiley, in a family photo provided by his grandmother, Veronica Roberson. Photo: Veronica Roberson via AP
Kohen Wiley Case Moves Again After the State Ruling
Attorney General Lynn Fitch announced on Monday that the use of force was justified.
Her office said there was too little evidence of criminal conduct to present the case to a grand jury.
The review followed an investigation by the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation.
Foster had been placed on administrative leave shortly after the June 14 shooting.
The city announced that leave on June 16, and his status stayed unclear through Thursday.
At the family news conference on Thursday, attorney Van Turner said Foster had resigned.
City officials did not confirm that claim until Friday.
Urban City Podcast has followed every turn in our coverage of the family response to the shooting video.
What the Released Video Shows
The Mississippi Department of Public Safety released redacted videos of the shooting on Thursday.
The release included footage from three body cameras worn by officers at the scene.
It also included surveillance video from the Walmart entrance and the parking lot.
Less than a minute passed between the alert inside the store and the shots outside.
Officers were already inside the Walmart looking at surveillance video for an unrelated matter.
A store worker then told them that two people were running toward the exit.
Video shows officers rushing outside as a gray Ford Fusion began to move.
The car backed up and struck a parked vehicle as officers shouted for the driver to stop.
Foster stepped in front of the car, then stepped aside as it began to accelerate.
He fired into the car at least three times, including one shot through the passenger side window.
In other body camera footage, Foster later told another official that he could not see a baby inside the car.
The car made minor contact with another officer, and no law enforcement injuries were reported.
Attorney Ben Crump speaks at a Thursday news conference in Senatobia with the family of Kohen Wiley standing beside him. Photo: WJTV
What the State Incident Report Says
The state also released a heavily redacted incident report from the investigation.
The report says officers were at the store because of a man accused of harassing customers.
Store asset protection workers told officers that people accused of fraudulent transactions were leaving.
The report says the driver backed into another car in the parking lot.
It says the driver then put the vehicle in drive and sped toward the officers.
At that point, one officer fired his gun into the moving car.
The car hit another vehicle and drove out of the parking lot.
The passengers reached Highland Hills Medical Center in Senatobia on their own.
Kohen was pronounced dead at the hospital.
Another passenger suffered critical injuries and was airlifted to Regional One Health.
A case file index shows five officers were at the scene when the shooting happened.
Three of those officers, including the officer who fired, are white. The other two are Black.
The Department of Public Safety declined to comment further on the case.
Read the earlier ruling in our report on the decision to bring no charges.
The Family Still Calls the Shooting Unjustified
Kohen was riding on the lap of his mother, Vellesiya Wiley, in the front passenger seat.
Police suspected the women of stealing diapers and baby clothes from the store.
His mother has denied that she or her friend stole anything.
Neither woman has been charged with shoplifting or any other count in the case.
Attorney Ben Crump said the response was excessive from the very start.
“They came out with guns drawn for a shoplifting misdemeanor,” Crump said on Thursday.
“Diapers should never cost a baby their life,” he said.
Crump said the video shows the fatal shot came from the side of the vehicle.
He said the family autopsy found that Kohen was shot from right to left.
His grandmother, Veronica Roberson, said the officers were not in danger when Kohen was killed.
“The word justified has haunted me,” Roberson said. “You killed my grandbaby and there is no justice for that.”
Crump and Turner said they plan to ask the Department of Justice and the FBI for a federal review.
Kohen would have turned 2 years old on November 1.
A demonstrator holds a Justice for Kohen Wiley sign during a June rally in Senatobia. Photo: Andrew Bell, Mississippi Free Press
Why This Resignation Does Not End the Fight
Foster attorney Martin Zummach defended the shooting in a statement this week.
He said the driver was attempting to kill the five officers at the scene.
He said Foster had no choice but to discharge his weapon.
“We are very sad for the loss of life,” Zummach said. “But the outcome of the investigation was not only expected, but it was overdue.”
For Black families across Mississippi, a resignation without charges still leaves the deepest question unanswered.
A baby is dead after a stop that began with an accusation about diapers.
The state has called that outcome justified, and the officer has now walked away from the job on his own terms.
The case has also unfolded inside a department already scarred by scandal.
Former Police Chief Harold Vanderford was fired last month after reports that he used racist slurs in private messages.
That history is part of why trust in Senatobia policing runs so low in the Black community.
The shooting set off days of protests in Senatobia, drawing activists from Memphis to the small town.
Senatobia sits about 40 miles south of Memphis, and the grief there has traveled far beyond Tate County.
Crump has not said publicly whether the family plans to file a civil lawsuit.
What is clear is that the family is not accepting resignation as accountability.
Their demand now moves to Washington, where a federal review is the next test of whether Kohen Wiley will get justice.
Stay with Urban City Podcast News for every development in this case.
