The fatal shooting of a 1-year-old child by a Mississippi police officer who fired into a vehicle while responding to a shoplifting call was a “justified” use of force, the state’s attorney general said Monday.
Attorney General Lynn Fitch’s office issued the brief statement four months after Kohen Wiley was killed when an officer fired at a car that police said was fleeing a Walmart parking lot in Senatobia.
“Today, the Attorney General’s Office announced that it has completed a review of an incident that occurred on June 14, 2026, in Senatobia involving an officer with the Senatobia Police Department,” the Attorney General’s Office said in the release. “In this incident, the Attorney General’s Office found that the use of force was justified.”
The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation conducted the investigation.
In a statement, an attorney for Wiley’s family questioned the investigation’s findings and urged the department to release body camera video of the shooting.
“If the footage supports the state’s decision, release it,” Ben Crump said in the statement. “We won’t stop fighting until this family finds out the truth. »
There was no immediate response from Wiley’s family, who have participated for months in protests demanding justice for the murdered boy in the small town 40 miles south of Memphis, Tennessee.
The shooting occurred after responding officers arrived at Walmart and saw “two subjects and a minor child fleeing the store in a vehicle,” the MBI said.
Kohen’s mother, who his attorney identified as Vellesiya Wiley, was a passenger. Her friend was driving.
“The officers attempted to stop the vehicle, but the driver drove toward them, almost hitting one,” the MBI said in a June 14 report. “An officer then fired his weapon and the vehicle fled the scene. The subjects arrived at a local hospital where a minor child in the vehicle was pronounced deceased and another subject was seriously injured.”
Kohen’s mother disputed this version.
In a video Crump posted to social media in June, Wiley said they went to Walmart to buy diapers. She said her friend was briefly arrested as they left the store and “I kept walking because it had nothing to do with me.”
“The moment my baby and I got in the car, she came,” Wiley said of her friend.
They encountered police as they began to back up, Wiley said.
“I raised my baby trying to show them he was in the car,” she said.
At that point, Wiley’s friend inadvertently hit another car while Wiley’s door was open.
Wiley said her friend did not try to hit the officers. “They were all on the right side and she was driving to the left,” she said.
In July, the family’s attorneys, Crump and Van Turner, released a preliminary autopsy report that they said showed the bullet that killed the child and injured the driver was fired through one side of the car, fueling new questions about whether the shooting was justified.
“His mother, who has not been charged with any crime, said she was trying to let the officers know there was a baby in the car,” Crump said.
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