Mississippi Attorney General Declares Police Shooting of One-Year-Old Justified

Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch announced on Monday that the police shooting of one-year-old Kohan Wiley, who was in his mother Vellesiya Wiley’s lap, was deemed justified. The decision follows a June 14 incident in Senatobia, where officers responding to a shoplifting report fired into the vehicle, killing the infant and wounding a passenger, Latoya Ferrell.

According to police reports, the women and child left a store and entered their car when officers arrived. Sgt. Hunter Foster, identified in the records, discharged his weapon after the driver allegedly moved toward the officers. The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation cited the driver’s movement as a factor in the shooting.

Civil-rights attorney Ben Crump, representing the family, released an independent autopsy indicating the child was shot from the side of the vehicle, contradicting the police account that the vehicle approached from the front. Crump has urged the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation to release the incident footage and complete the investigation into Sgt. Foster.

The shooting adds to a series of controversies involving the Senatobia police department, which has faced allegations of racial misconduct and previous incidents involving Black residents. The town’s police chief was replaced in 2023 after reports of racial slurs, and the department’s leadership has changed multiple times since then.