Baby Killed in Police Shooting!

police car roof with flashing blue lights at night — Photo: travelarium.ph / Shutterstock

A one-year-old boy died in his mother’s arms in a Walmart parking lot, and now his parents are standing outside the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office demanding someone explain why.

Quick Take

Kohen Wiley, 1, died after Senatobia officer Hunter Foster fired three shots into a car during a shoplifting stop in June 2026.
Attorney General Lynn Fitch’s office ruled the shooting justified and declined to file criminal charges against Foster.
The family’s independent autopsy claims the fatal shot came from the side of the car, not the front where officers say the vehicle threatened Foster.
Foster resigned after body camera and Walmart surveillance video became public, and the parents are now protesting the decision in person.

What the Released Video Actually Shows

Mississippi’s Department of Public Safety released three body camera videos and two Walmart surveillance clips showing the moments before Foster fired. The footage shows Vellesiya Wiley holding her son Kohen as she and another woman got into the car during a shoplifting investigation. Officers can be heard shouting “stop” as the vehicle moved, and Foster fired three shots from near the front or passenger side of the car.

Attorney General Fitch’s office says the driver reversed into a parked SUV, then accelerated forward and turned, passing close enough to officers that Foster believed he was about to be hit. That account, repeated across multiple local outlets, forms the entire legal basis for clearing him of wrongdoing.

The Family’s Fight for Answers

Attorney Ben Crump, representing Kohen’s parents, says an independent autopsy the family commissioned tells a different story. Crump argues the fatal bullet entered from the side of the vehicle, not the front, which he says undercuts the claim that Foster fired because the car was driving straight at him. He says the released video backs up that side-angle conclusion.

The family also points out something no one disputes: Kohen was not a suspect. He was a baby being held by his mother. Foster later told another officer he never saw a baby in the car, which raises a harder question. If he could not see the child, did he have time to see anything else clearly before pulling the trigger?

Why the State Says the Shooting Was Justified

Fitch’s letter to the city of Senatobia was blunt. Her office found “insufficient evidence of criminal conduct” and declined to charge Foster or any other officer involved. Foster’s attorney, Martin Zummach, has gone further, saying his client “had no choice” but to fire because the car was going to hit him, and that the footage vindicates that account.

This is where the case gets genuinely hard, and conservatives who value both law enforcement and due process should sit with that discomfort rather than pick a side by reflex. Officers have a right to defend themselves from a vehicle used as a weapon. But a one-year-old is dead, and the family’s side-angle autopsy claim deserves a direct public answer, not a two-sentence letter.

Foster resigned shortly after the video went public, and Senatobia’s interim police chief resigned as well. Resignations are not accountability. They are an exit ramp that lets everyone involved avoid answering the central question the parents are asking out loud: why did an unarmed toddler end up dead after a shoplifting call?

A Pattern Bigger Than One Parking Lot

This case fits a problem researchers have flagged for years. Departments with stricter rules against firing at moving vehicles see fewer such shootings, according to a study of the 100 largest U.S. police departments. The Justice Department’s own use-of-force policy bars firing at a moving vehicle unless someone inside is threatening deadly force by some means other than the car itself.

Police Officer Who Shot Dead One-Year-Old Kohen Wiley Resigns After State Rulinghttps://t.co/N2DqaCnBf4 pic.twitter.com/CJWK5yDLgG

— Fish 4 News (@Fish4NewsUK) October 28, 2026

That standard exists precisely because vehicles create split-second, high-stakes judgment calls that are easy to defend after the fact and nearly impossible to verify in the moment. Whether Senatobia’s own policy matched that standard, and whether Foster followed his training, are questions the Attorney General’s one-paragraph justification never answered. The parents standing outside her office are simply demanding she try.