Mississippi authorities have ruled that a police officer was justified in opening fire on a vehicle during a shoplifting investigation, despite the death of a one-year-old boy inside, a decision the child’s family says cannot be accepted without the release of video evidence.
Kohen Wiley was killed in June while sitting on his mother’s lap in a car outside a Walmart store in Senatobia, Mississippi. The shooting also left the driver, Latoya Ferrell, critically injured.
Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch announced the finding on Monday, concluding that the officer’s use of force was justified.
But the decision has drawn strong objections from the family’s lawyer, Benjamin Crump, who questioned how authorities could reach that conclusion without making available footage from police body cameras and surveillance cameras at the scene.
“If the footage supports the state’s decision, release it,” Crump said, according to the BBC, insisting that the family would continue seeking answers over the child’s death.
The incident began on June 14 after police were called to the store over allegations that baby supplies, including nappies and clothing, had been stolen. Kohen’s mother, Vellesiya Wiley, has denied the allegations. Neither she nor Ferrell has been charged with a crime.
According to the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, officers arrived as two women and a child were walking towards a vehicle. Police attempted to stop the car, which authorities alleged was driven towards an officer and nearly struck him.
An officer then opened fire, killing Kohen and critically injuring Ferrell.
Wiley has disputed the account surrounding the confrontation, saying she lifted her son from her lap to show officers that the child was inside the vehicle before the shooting.
The officer’s lawyer, Martin Zummach, defended the shooting, telling the Associated Press that Ferrell had “tried to kill” his client and that the officer had no choice but to fire.
However, the absence of publicly released footage has become central to the dispute, with the family demanding evidence that could help establish what happened in the moments before the gunfire.
Kohen’s death, which occurred on Juneteenth, the US holiday commemorating the end of slavery, sparked protests in Senatobia. Demonstrators questioned whether race influenced the handling of the case, noting that the child and both women were Black, while the officer who fired was reportedly white.
The controversy has also unfolded amid scrutiny of the city’s police leadership. Last month, Senatobia dismissed its white police chief after newspapers reported that text messages showed him repeatedly using racial slurs.
The attorney general’s decision settles the state’s assessment of the officer’s use of force, but it has not ended the family’s demand for transparency. With the footage still unreleased, questions about the confrontation and the circumstances surrounding the toddler’s death remain at the centre of the dispute.
