Mississippi Family Denounces Police Killing of 1-Year-Old Boy After Reviewing Bodycam Footage

POLICY WIRE — Senatobia, Mississippi — Relatives of a 1-year-old boy who died after a police officer fired into a moving vehicle have rejected the official determination that the shooting was justified, following their review of body-worn camera footage from the incident.

Kohen Wiley’s close family members examined the recordings from the June encounter, which took place in a Walmart parking lot in Senatobia, roughly 40 miles south of Memphis, Tennessee. The review included footage captured directly by the Senatobia police officer who discharged his weapon and killed the child.

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, representing the grieving family, noted during a Thursday news conference that Kohen would have turned two years old in early November. Earlier in the week, a state investigation cleared Sgt. Hunter Foster of any criminal wrongdoing, with the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office concluding that the use of lethal force was justified during the pursuit of two women suspected of shoplifting.

Kohen’s maternal grandmother, Veronica Roberson, expressed profound distress over the state’s decision, calling the term justified haunting and noting that no such rationale applies to the loss. Roberson added that learning of the officer’s clearance through news reports and discovering leaked video clips online a day prior felt like a severe slap in the face to her relatives.

Legal representation for Sgt. Hunter Foster maintained that the video exonerates the officer, arguing that he faced direct danger from the advancing vehicle and was left with no alternative option but to open fire. Conversely, Crump and the family’s independent autopsy assert that the fatal bullet entered from the side of the car, contradicting claims that the officer was standing directly in the path of imminent danger.

Reporting by Policy-Wire (PW)