Mississippi Officer Resigns After Fatal Shooting of Toddler

Mississippi Officer Resigns, and the timing is the whole story. Hunter Foster, the Senatobia police officer who fatally shot one-year-old Kohen Wiley in a Walmart parking lot in June, has stepped down from the department, Mayor Greg Graves confirmed Friday. The Mississippi Officer Resigns headline caps a week of fast-moving developments in a case that drew national outrage. The board of aldermen accepted Foster's resignation on October 21, and it took effect immediately, according to the Commercial Appeal, which means Foster is no longer employed by the city. City clerk Katie Harbin confirmed that Foster submitted a resignation letter, CNN reported. The resignation comes only days after the state's top prosecutor cleared him of any criminal wrongdoing in the child's death, a sequence that has left the family and civil rights advocates pressing for answers.

The shooting happened on June 14, when Senatobia officers and Tate County deputies followed Kohen's mother, Vellesiya Wiley, and her friend to their car while responding to a shoplifting call at the Walmart. The Mississippi Department of Public Safety said officers tried to stop the vehicle and that the driver moved it toward them. Neither woman had been charged with shoplifting, according to court records cited by the Associated Press.

Body camera footage released this week captures an officer shouting, "Stop the car!" as the vehicle moves forward. CNN, describing the video, reported that Foster stood near the front passenger side of the car and fired into it. The driver, a friend of the mother, was also wounded in the shooting. In a separate clip, Foster told another law enforcement official he could not see a baby inside the car. The child's mother has disputed the account that her friend aimed the vehicle at the officers. The Mississippi Officer Resigns case turned on this video evidence, released just as public pressure was peaking.

The resignation lands in a week that swung hard in the other direction for the family. Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch announced on October 19 that the use of force was justified and that Foster would face no criminal charges, after a months-long review. Foster had been on leave since June 16, the city said at the time. Two days later, on October 22, the Department of Public Safety released body camera and surveillance footage from the parking lot encounter. Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represents the family, said the video shows the fatal shot came from the side of the car, a finding he said an independent autopsy commissioned by the family supports. Reuters reported that the shooting had already drawn calls from civil rights advocates for accountability. Read the Commercial Appeal's full report on the resignation, and see CNN's breakdown of the footage.

The family calls for a federal investigation

Kohen's family has said the shooting was not justified, and the resignation has not closed the case for them. For the family, the Mississippi Officer Resigns development changes nothing about what they are asking for. Crump said the family is calling for a Department of Justice investigation into the death. In a statement, he called Foster's resignation "hardly a step toward accountability" and "certainly not justice," adding that turning in a badge does not erase responsibility for taking a life and that the family's fight will continue. The Mississippi Free Press, which has covered the case closely, reported on the resignation as the footage circulated. Foster's own lawyer, Martin Zummach, told NBC News that his client resigned "for the good of the city and the police department and to permit the process of healing."

A police department in turmoil

Foster is not the only departure. Angelica Maze, the interim police chief, also resigned this week, according to local media cited by Reuters, though CNN reported she is staying with the department in a different role. Her exit follows the firing of former chief Harold Vanderford last month after reports surfaced that he used racist slurs in private text messages, the Associated Press reported. The Mississippi Officer Resigns case is the latest strain on a department already in transition. The back-to-back leadership changes leave the small department answering for both a child's death and its own internal conduct within a matter of weeks.

For now, the federal government has not said whether it will open a civil rights investigation. Foster was cleared of state charges and has now resigned from his post, while the family pushes for Washington to examine the footage. That is where the Kohen Wiley case stands: a Mississippi Officer Resigns with the questions around that June afternoon unresolved, and the family's legal team has made clear it does not intend to let them go quiet. The news will likely keep the case in the national spotlight as the family presses for a federal review. More social justice coverage and the GenZNewz homepage carry related reporting.