Mississippi AG rules Senatobia officer’s fatal shooting of toddler ‘justified’
An independent autopsy released by civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is representing the Wiley family, indicated that one-year-old Kohen Wiley was struck from the side of the car, not the front, when a Senatobia, Mississippi, police officer fired into the vehicle on June 14, contradicting officers’ statements that Latoya Ferrell headed toward them.
The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, which investigated the shooting, alleged that the driver “drove in the direction of the officers, almost striking one.” Crump released the independent autopsy indicating that Kohen was shot from the side of the car, not the front, contradicting officers’ statements that Ferrell headed toward them.
The autopsy finding comes as the office of Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch announced Monday that the shooting was “justified,” the state review’s conclusion four months after the killing. Neither Vellesiya Wiley, the toddler’s mother, nor Ferrell, who was wounded in the same volley of gunfire, has been charged in the alleged shoplifting of a pack of diapers that prompted officers to respond. Officials have not released any evidence of shoplifting. Senatobia is a small city near Memphis.
According to police reports, on the day of the shooting, the women and child exited the store, entered their vehicle and began to leave the parking lot when officers arrived. Police drew their weapons. Wiley lifted the baby to indicate there was a child in the car. An officer, identified by other records as Sgt. Hunter Foster, fired into the vehicle, killing Kohen Wiley and wounding Ferrell. Foster is white; both Wileys and Ferrell are Black.
“I watched my baby take his first breath, and I watched my baby take his last breath,” Kohen’s mother said during a press conference after the shooting.
The shooting is the most recent in a series of incidents involving Senatobia’s police force. The town is approximately 40 percent Black. In September, Senatobia fired its police chief, who reportedly used racial slurs. In 2023, the town drew national attention after an officer arrested and placed in a cell a 10-year-old Black boy who had urinated in public; that child was later sentenced to three months’ probation.
Last year, the town’s aldermen voted to replace the police chief who was serving at the time of the 10-year-old’s arrest with Harold Vanderford, who served when Wiley was killed. He has since been replaced by Angelica Maze, who is Black.
“A one-year-old was shot and killed by an officer of this department, and nearly three months later his family still has not been allowed to see the footage,” Crump said at the time. “The racist language that cost Chief Vanderford his job is exactly why this family cannot simply be told to trust the process. MBI has the footage. Release it, finish the investigation into Sgt Foster, and give this family the facts they have been owed since the day Kohen died.”
It is not yet clear if or when law enforcement officials will release footage from the incident.