Mississippi state officials have publicly distributed full body-worn camera footage documenting the fatal police shooting that claimed the life of 1-year-old Kohen Wiley during a June 14 incident outside a Senatobia Walmart, where officers had been dispatched to respond to a reported shoplifting call. The footage, released on a Thursday, captures the first-person perspective of the officer who opened fire, identified later as Hunter Foster. According to the sequence captured on film, five armed law enforcement officers sprint toward the vehicle where Kohen was seated on his mother Vellesiya Wiley’s lap, after being alerted by Walmart staff that suspected shoplifters were attempting to flee. The car first reverses and collides with a nearby parked vehicle before lurching forward, at which point the officer wearing the body cam raises his service weapon, shouts repeated commands to stop, and fires four rounds as the moving car passes directly beside him, shattering the passenger side window. The vehicle then slowly drives out of the parking lot.
State Attorney General investigators concluded that the officer’s use of lethal force was legally justified, a finding that Foster’s legal representative Martin Zummach defended in a formal statement to the BBC. Zummach claimed the driver of the car was actively attempting to run down and kill all five responding officers, leaving his client with no reasonable alternative but to discharge his weapon, adding that while the legal team expressed sorrow over the infant’s death, the investigation’s outcome was both expected and long overdue. Senatobia Mayor Greg Graves confirmed to CBS, the BBC’s U.S. media partner, that Foster has since resigned from his post with the Senatobia Police Department, though the department itself has not yet issued a formal response to media requests for further confirmation.
The family of Kohen Wiley has forcefully rejected the claim that the shooting was justified, retaining prominent civil rights attorney Ben Crump to represent their case. Crump characterized the entire law enforcement response as excessive from the moment officers approached the vehicle, emphasizing that a low-level shoplifting allegation could never justify the wrongful death of a toddler. Vellesiya Wiley, the child’s mother, has explicitly denied that she or the other woman traveling with her stole nappies from the Walmart location, and to date, no criminal charges have been filed against either woman. Publicly available storefront CCTV footage also appears to show that a second officer was standing directly in the path of the moving car at the exact moment Foster opened fire, a detail that has raised further questions among community members. The infant’s death has sparked widespread local vigils and peaceful protests across Mississippi, with family members holding public press conferences to demand full accountability for the incident. Kohen’s grandmother LaSandra Williams stated publicly after viewing the newly released footage that she cannot reconcile the state’s ruling of “justified force” with the tragic, preventable loss of her 1-year-old grandchild.
Bodycam clip released in fatal police shooting of Mississippi one-year-old
