The police officer who shot and killed 1-year-old Kohen Wiley while chasing two women accused of shoplifting was justified in shooting at their car as it pulled out of a Walmart parking space in June, the Mississippi Attorney General’s office announced Monday. (Shutterstock)
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The police officer who shot and killed 1-year-old Kohen Wiley while chasing two women accused of shoplifting was justified in shooting at their car as it pulled out of a Walmart parking space in June, the Mississippi Attorney General’s office announced Monday.
The decision came four months after Hunter Foster, an officer with the Senatobia Police Department, was placed on leave while state authorities investigated. Although he has not been directly named as the officer who fired, Foster is the only officer among those present that day who was placed on leave.
A letter from Attorney General Lynn Fitch, posted online Monday by the city of Senatobia, Mississippi, stated that her office would not file charges against Foster or any other officers because there was “insufficient evidence of criminal conduct.” It was not immediately clear if Foster would return to work in Senatobia, a small city about 30 minutes south of Memphis, Tennessee.
In a brief statement to the public, Fitch’s office announced it had completed its review and “found the use of force was justified.”
State authorities did not say if or when they would release body camera footage or other surveillance video of the incident.
It was also unclear what other evidence state authorities had considered. Several witnesses, including Vellesiya Wiley, who was holding her son Kohen when the officer shot him, said as recently as this month that they had never been interviewed by investigators. Wiley also denied having taken anything from the store, and said she believed the woman she was with had paid for her items at self-checkout.
Wiley said she had been holding her son in her arms in the front passenger seat when the driver, Latoya Ferrell, tried to back out of a space and then drive forward. Both women are Black. Foster is white.
In the hours after the shooting, the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation issued a statement saying police had fired at a vehicle when it drove toward an officer, “almost striking” one.
Reached by phone Monday, Wiley wept over the decision.
Martin Zummach, a lawyer for Foster, said Fitch’s decision was “expected” and “overdue.”
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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
By Joseph Cranney and Mukta Joshi
c. 2026 The New York Times Company
