The Mississippi police officer who fired the shot that killed 1-year-old Kohen Wiley has resigned, a city official told NBC News Friday.
Hunter Foster, who worked for the Senatobia Police Department, turned in his badge and gun just 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, Senate human resources manager, did not say why Foster was leaving the Senate Police Department.
“The mayor’s office confirmed the resignation,” Mayer said.
Foster’s attorney, Martin Zummach, said in an email to NBC News that Foster “resigned for the good of the city and the police department and to allow for the healing process.”
“He is still shocked and sickened that a baby died and categorically denies knowing that 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 said police responded to the Walmart to investigate a shoplifting incident, Zummach wrote that Foster was part of a team “investigating an unrelated matter involving an adult who attempted to sexually assault a minor on store property.”
“All Foster and other law enforcement officers present during this investigation were told was to flee,” Zummach wrote.
Kohen’s fatal shooting on June 14 caused an outcry in this small town about 40 miles south of Memphis, Tennessee, where black residents have long complained of police harassment.
The shooting occurred after officers responding to a report of a shoplifting at a local Walmart arrived and saw “two subjects and a minor child fleeing the store in a vehicle,” according to the MBI.
Kohen’s mother, who his attorney identified as Vellesiya Wiley, was a passenger. Her friend was driving. Both women are black, as is Kohen.
“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.
Her attorney, Ben Crump, posted a video on social media in June in which 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 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 the body-worn cameras of several law enforcement officers.
They show two women, one holding a baby, running across the parking lot and entering a vehicle. Five police officers approach the parked car, guns drawn. The car reverses and crashes into a parked vehicle nearby as officers yell at it to stop.
The vehicle then accelerates forward as an officer walks toward it with his weapon 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 front passenger side window. The car continues to drive before the video stops.
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