The Mississippi police officer who fired the shot that killed 1-year-old Kohen Wiley has resigned, a city official told NBC News on Friday.
Hunter Foster, who worked for the Senatobia Police Department, turned in his badge and gun just a few days after state Attorney General Lynn Fitch’s office issued a brief statement saying the fatal shooting was a “justified” use of force.
Jada Mayer, who is Senatobia’s human resources clerk, did not say why Foster was leaving the Senatobia Police Department.
“The mayor’s office confirmed the resignation,” Mayer said.
Foster’s lawyer, Martin Zummach, said in an email to NBC News that Foster “resigned for the good of the city and the police department and to permit the process of healing.”
“He is still shocked and sickened that a baby died and emphatically denies knowing a child was in the car or in the front seat and had no idea that those fleeing were suspected of shoplifting,” the lawyer said.
While the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation has stated that police had been responding to the Walmart to investigate a shoplifting, Zummach wrote Foster was part of a team “investigating an unrelated case involving an adult who had attempted to sexually assault a minor on the store’s property.”
“All that Foster and the other law enforcement present were told during that investigation process is that ‘they are running,’” Zummach wrote.
The fatal shooting of Kohen on June 14 caused an uproar in this small town some 40 miles south of Memphis, Tennessee, where Black residents have long complained about police harassment.
The shooting happened after the officers responding to a report of a shoplifting at a local Walmart arrived and saw “two subjects and a juvenile child fleeing from the store into a vehicle,” according to the MBI.
Kohen’s mother, whom her lawyer identified as Vellesiya Wiley, was a passenger. Her friend was driving. Both women are Black, as was Kohen.
“Officers attempted to stop the vehicle, but the driver drove in the direction of the officers, almost striking one,” the MBI said in a June 14 report. “An officer then discharged their weapon and the vehicle fled the scene. The subjects arrived at a local hospital where one juvenile child in the vehicle was pronounced deceased, and another subject had critical injuries.”
FOR SUBSCRIBERSMAHA votes may be up for grabs
FOR SUBSCRIBERSVivek Ramaswamy supporters criticize his controversial ad
FOR SUBSCRIBERSNetflix bets on ‘La Bola Negra’ for best picture: On the Lot
FOR SUBSCRIBERSMAHA votes may be up for grabs
FOR SUBSCRIBERSVivek Ramaswamy supporters criticize his controversial ad
FOR SUBSCRIBERSNetflix bets on ‘La Bola Negra’ for best picture: On the Lot
Kohen’s mother has disputed that account.
Her lawyer, Ben Crump, posted a video on social media in June where Wiley said they had gone to Walmart for diapers. She said that her friend was briefly stopped while they were leaving the store and that “I kept walking because it had nothing to do with me.”
“By the time me and my baby got in the car, she came,” Wiley said of her friend.
They encountered police as they began to back out, Wiley said.
“I raised my baby up trying to show them that he was in the car,” she said.
In that moment, Wiley said her friend inadvertently hit another car while Wiley’s door was open.
On Thursday, the Mississippi Department of Public Safety released video showing the same shooting from multiple law enforcement officers’ body-worn cameras.
They show two women, one holding a baby, running across the parking lot and entering a vehicle. Five officers approach the parked car with guns drawn. The car reverses away and crashes into a parked vehicle nearby as officers yell for it to stop.
The vehicle then accelerates forward as an officer steps toward it with his gun drawn. The wheels turn away from him, and he appears to put his hands on the hood as he jumps out of the way. He fires his gun, shattering the window of the front passenger side. The car continues to drive away before the video cuts out.
