Mississippi attorney general finds fatal shooting of toddler justified

Mississippi’s attorney general has found that an officer was justified in firing into a car outside a Walmart in June, killing 1-year-old Kohen Wiley. The finding follows months of protests by the boy’s family, which disputes the police account of what happened.

Attorney General Lynn Fitch’s office announced Monday that it had completed its review of the June 14 shooting in Senatobia, about 40 miles south of Memphis, Tennessee. “In this incident, the Attorney General’s Office found the use of force was justified,” it said in a brief statement. The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation conducted the investigation.

Officers had responded to a shoplifting call when they saw two adults and a child leave the store and enter a vehicle, according to the bureau. “Officers attempted to stop the vehicle, but the driver drove in the direction of the officers, almost striking one,” the bureau said in its June report. An officer fired, and the car left the parking lot. Kohen was pronounced dead at a hospital, and another person in the vehicle was critically injured.

Kohen’s mother, Vellesiya Wiley, was a passenger. Her friend, identified by The Guardian as Latoya Ferrell, was driving. The Guardian reported that the shoplifting call alleged the women had stolen a pack of diapers, but that neither has been charged and officials have released no evidence of shoplifting.

Wiley has disputed the account that the driver nearly struck an officer. In a video posted in June by family attorney Ben Crump, she said they had gone to Walmart for diapers and that her friend was briefly stopped as they left the store. Wiley said she continued to the car with Kohen. As they began to back out and encountered police, she said, “I raised my baby up trying to show them that he was in the car.”

Wiley said her friend inadvertently hit another car while Wiley’s door was open, but did not drive toward the officers. “They was all on the right side, and she was driving towards the left,” she said.

In July, Crump and fellow family attorney Van Turner released a preliminary autopsy report that they said showed the bullet that killed Kohen and wounded the driver was fired through the side of the car. The lawyers have questioned whether the shooting was justified. The Guardian identified the officer who fired as Sgt. Hunter Foster, citing other records.

“I watched my baby take his first breath, and I watched my baby take his last breath,” Wiley said at a news conference after the shooting, according to The Guardian. The newspaper reported that it remains unclear whether or when officials will release footage of the incident. Crump has called for its release, saying the family has not been given the facts it is owed.

There was no immediate response from Kohen’s family to the attorney general’s finding.