Mississippi Releases Video of Fatal Police Shooting of 1-Year-Old Boy
Mississippi authorities released body-camera and surveillance footage Thursday showing the fatal shooting of 1-year-old Kohen Wiley by a Senatobia police officer during a June parking lot encounter; the toddler's family and defense attorneys are now petitioning the federal government for an investigation.
The state Department of Public Safety published the multi-angle video recordings a day after local outlet Darkhorse Press posted portions online, following an investigation by the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office that cleared Senatobia police officer Sgt. Hunter Foster of criminal wrongdoing, according to AP News. Kohen’s relatives and their legal team, including civil rights attorney Ben Crump, reviewed the complete footage during a press conference Thursday in Senatobia, located roughly 40 miles south of Memphis, Tennessee.
Parking Lot Confrontation and Officer Responding to Shoplifting Call
The sequence began on June 14, when Senatobia police officers responded to a Walmart store regarding an alleged shoplifting incident involving diapers, according to state investigative reports cited by AP News and Live 5 News.
Surveillance and body-worn camera footage show Kohen’s mother, Vellesiya Wiley, holding the child as she and a friend run across the parking lot toward a gray sedan, pursued by five officers with drawn weapons. The vehicle reverses and strikes a nearby parked car before accelerating forward. As the car moves, Foster steps directly in front of it with his weapon drawn, places his hand on the hood, jumps out of the way, and fires three shots through the front passenger-side window where Kohen sat on his mother’s lap, according to AP News and Action News 5.
The vehicle continued driving away as officers shouted commands to stop. Action News 5 reported that Foster has since resigned from the Senatobia Police Department.
Conflicting Legal Arguments Over Justification and Force
The Mississippi Attorney General’s Office concluded that Foster’s use of deadly force was appropriate based on an investigation by the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, determining that the driver moved the vehicle toward the officers.
Martin Zummach, an attorney representing Foster, stated that his client had no choice but to fire because the vehicle was bearing down on him.
Crump asserted that the video evidence proves Foster was standing safely to the side of the car and was not in imminent danger of being struck when he fired the fatal shot.
An independent autopsy commissioned by the family reached the same conclusion regarding the trajectory of the gunfire, according to AP News. Grandmother Veronica Roberson told reporters she learned the officer was cleared by reading news reports rather than receiving notification from state officials, calling the leak and lack of direct communication a "slap in the face."
Expert Analysis and Calls for a Federal Investigation
Use-of-force experts offered contrasting interpretations of the footage. John P. Gross, a specialist in police encounters involving moving vehicles, told AP News that while a brief delay in stopping gunfire can occur as a car accelerates past, Foster should not have positioned himself directly in front of the vehicle in response to a suspected shoplifting call.
Conversely, Charles “Joe” Key, a former Baltimore police lieutenant who frequently testifies in use-of-force litigation, told AP News that the driver appeared to use the automobile as a deadly weapon, leaving the officer with a narrow escape and rendering the shooting objectively reasonable.
The Wiley family’s legal team announced plans to formally petition the U.S. Department of Justice to open an independent civil rights investigation into the toddler’s death, while local civil rights organizations continue to support the family as Kohen’s second birthday approaches on November 1.