Mississippi Ruled the Kohen Wiley Shooting "Justified"

A shoplifting call outside a Walmart in Senatobia, Mississippi, ended on June 14 with a police bullet striking a toddler. Officers had responded to an allegation that a pack of diapers and some baby clothing had been taken from the store. Within moments, the Kohen Wiley shooting had ended the life of a one-year-old boy who was sitting on his mother's lap.

According to the Mississippi Free Press, the boy's mother, Vellesiya Wiley, and Latoya Ferrell left the store with the child as officers arrived and got into their car. Officers drew their weapons. The Free Press reported that Vellesiya Wiley lifted her son up to show the officers that a child was in the vehicle. An officer fired into the car, killing the child. A bullet also struck Ferrell, who was in the driver's seat. The Free Press reported that neither woman has been charged with a crime.

The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, which handled the inquiry, alleged on the day of the shooting that the driver had steered the car directly at them and nearly clipped a patrolman, according to the Mississippi Free Press. The family has disputed that account. An independent autopsy showed the bullet entered Kohen's body from the side, which contradicts the claim that the vehicle was bearing down on officers head-on, according to QNC News. The family is demanding the release of body camera and store surveillance footage, none of which has been made public. A multiracial group of residents marched in Senatobia on June 26 in response to the Kohen Wiley shooting, the Free Press reported.

The ruling

On October 19, Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch announced that her office had completed its review of the Kohen Wiley shooting. "In this incident, the Attorney General's Office found the use of force was justified," the statement said, according to the Mississippi Free Press. QNC News reported that the finding means the officer will not face criminal charges. The attorney general's statement did not name the officer. Unheard Voices magazine reported that local reporting identified him as Sgt. Hunter Foster.

The family's attorney, Benjamin Crump, denounced the ruling in a statement on Monday and demanded that the footage from the Kohen Wiley shooting be released. Crump questioned how anyone could accept the conclusion while the body camera video remained hidden, according to QNC News. Marquell Bridges, president of the Building Bridges Coalition, told the Free Press that the decision amounted to a cover-up. "There is blood on your hands," Bridges said of the officials involved.

A pattern in Senatobia

The Kohen Wiley shooting did not happen in a vacuum. The Senatobia Police Department has a history that has drawn national attention before, and not in ways that inspire confidence. The department previously made headlines for arresting a 10-year-old Black child for public urination, and its former police chief resigned after text messages laced with racial slurs were exposed, according to the outlet Our Truth. The outlet also reported that Foster himself faced an internal complaint two days before the shooting over directing anti-Black slurs at a colleague.

This is the part that sticks. The call was about an alleged low-level theft, the kind of thing a store manager writes up and moves on from. The response was officers with drawn guns facing down a car with a baby inside. Then, after four months of review behind closed doors, the state's answer was a single word: justified. The Kohen Wiley shooting sits in the gap between what the law permits and what feels acceptable, and that gap is the whole story.

This case echoes other stories from the same month. A federal court just blocked a government attempt to strip protections from sanctuary cities in New York, a ruling about who the law actually protects. Meanwhile, another wave of protesters is trading marches for ballots in a national push to move dissent into the voting booth. The thread connecting them is simple: institutions keep deciding that the people with the least power are the ones whose safety matters least.

What happens next is uncertain. The attorney general's review has closed the criminal question, but the family continues to press for the release of the footage, and the department has not released body camera or Walmart surveillance video of the incident, according to Wide Open Country. The state has ruled the Kohen Wiley shooting justified. The family, the protesters, and everyone watching from outside Senatobia are still waiting for a version of justice that includes the truth about what happened in that parking lot.

External links: - https://www.mississippifreepress.org/police-shooting-of-1-year-old-kohen-wiley-was-justified-mississippi-attorney-general-says/ - https://qncnews.com/2026/10/20/mississippi-attorney-general-says-police-used-justified-force-in-fatal-incident-involving-a-one-year-old/ image_search_query: Senatobia Mississippi candlelight vigil for Kohen Wiley image_description: Community members gather at dusk for a candlelight vigil in Senatobia, Mississippi, holding signs and photos in memory of Kohen Wiley, the one-year-old killed in a June police shooting that the state attorney general ruled justified.