Joseph Cranney is a reporter with the Deep South Today Investigative Reporting Center in collaboration with The New York Times. Mukta Joshi is an investigative reporter at Mississippi Today. She is spending a year as a New York Times Local Investigations fellow examining immigration and criminal justice issues. 

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 ruled Monday.

The decision came four months after Hunter Foster, an officer with the Senatobia Police Department, was placed on leave while state authorities investigated his actions. 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.

Many details of the incident remain unknown, and it wasn’t immediately clear if or when law enforcement would release body-worn camera footage or other surveillance video of the incident.

It is also unclear what other evidence state authorities considered. Several witnesses and Kohen’s mother, Vellesiya Wiley, said as recently as this month that they had never been interviewed by investigators.

Video taken by bystanders around the time of the shooting shows officers on foot intercepting the slow-moving vehicle in the close quarters of the parking lot on a Sunday afternoon. Five officers had surrounded the car, but none of the video made public so far clearly shows the car or the officers’ actions when the shots were fired.

Vellesiya Wiley said she was holding her son in her arms in the front passenger seat when her friend, Latoya Ferrell, tried to back out of a space and then drove forward to get away from the officers. 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.

Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch “found the use of force was justified,” her short statement Monday said. The statement said “one officer” was involved, though it did not name the officer or share any more details about what had happened.

Ben Crump, a lawyer for the Wiley family, reiterated his calls Monday for law enforcement to release video of the incident.

“How can anyone accept that conclusion when Kohen’s family and the public still have not been allowed to see the body-camera footage?” Crump said in a statement.

“If the footage supports the state’s decision, release it,” Crump added. “We will not stop fighting until this family gets the truth.”

Reached by phone Monday, Vellesiya Wiley wept over the decision. The Senatobia Committee for Accountability and Transparency, founded by Senatobia resident Patrick Lumumba after the shooting, posted on its Facebook page that it was withholding comment too.

“Our founder has literally wiped the tears of Kohen’s grandmother,” the statement said. “It affected people, relationships, and a community in ways that cannot be fully captured in headlines or social media statements.”

Martin Zummach, a lawyer for Foster, said Fitch’s decision was “expected” and “overdue.”

Veronica Roberson, the toddler’s grandmother, said Monday she learned of the attorney general’s decision when she logged onto Facebook. No state or local law enforcement official had reached out to the family, she said.

Foster, 33, is a former member of the U.S. Army National Guard and the son of a longtime law enforcement officer. Prior to joining the Senatobia department in March 2025, Foster made a name for himself at the DeSoto County Sheriff’s Office, where he won a statewide award for issuing the most DUI citations of any law enforcement officer in Mississippi in back-to-back years in 2023-24.

Foster was promoted to sergeant six months into his term at Senatobia. In the last year, he was twice accused of directing racially offensive language toward coworkers on the job, including referring to a Black officer as a “Black motherfucker,” Mississippi Today reported.

Senatobia’s former chief, Harold “Hal” Vanderford, who took no action against Foster in either case, was fired in September less than two weeks after The New York Times, Mississippi Today and Verite News revealed he had routinely used racist slurs in private texts with a colleague.

Angelica Maze, a Black woman who was serving as a lieutenant in the department, was named Vanderford’s interim replacement. She didn’t respond Monday to a request seeking comment on the attorney general’s decision. The city of Senatobia released a brief statement on Facebook on Monday, saying it “continues to extend its deepest sympathy to Kohen Wiley’s family and all those affected by this tragedy.”

Update, 10/19/2026: This article has been updated with additional details.