The police officer who shot and killed a 1-year-old boy in Mississippi while fired at a moving vehicle while responding to a shoplifting call, he resigned, Senatobia’s mayor told the Associated Press on Friday.
Sgt. Hunter Foster had been cleared of criminal acts by the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office earlier this week after its months-long investigation concluded his use of force was justified.
The state released videos of the fatal shooting of Kohen Wiley on Thursday, including footage from Foster’s body-worn camera the meeting of June 14 in a Walmart parking lot in Senatobia, about 40 miles south of Memphis, Tennessee.
Senatorobia Mayor Greg Graves confirmed Foster’s resignation on Friday.
Foster’s attorney, Martin Zummach, declined to comment when contacted Friday. Zummach said Foster had “no choice” but to fire his gun at the vehicle because it was moving toward him.
Kohen’s mother, Vellesiya Wiley, disputed that her friend, who was driving, drove toward the officers.
Ben Crump, an attorney for Kohen’s family, said the footage shows the a fatal shot came from the side of the cardisputing that Foster was in imminent danger. An independent autopsy commissioned by the family concluded the same thing. An image of the vehicle shows its right front passenger window shattered. The family’s legal team has asked the federal government to investigate the shooting.
Van Turner, another attorney representing Kohen’s family, requested that Foster be decertified as a police officer.
“What we need is for him to be decertified so he can’t go to another police department and do the same thing,” Van Turner said during a news conference Thursday.
Mississippi Department of Public Safety spokesman Alex Gibert said Friday that Foster remains certified as a police officer.
Kohen would have celebrated his second birthday in early November.
The group of officers were at the Walmart store responding to an unrelated incident, according to a report from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation. A Walmart employee then alerted them to the presence of two women fleeing the store.
The videos show Kohen’s mother, Vellesiya Wiley, holding Kohen in her arms as she and her friend run across the parking lot and get into their 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 Foster walks towards it, directly ahead, 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 front passenger side window, where Kohen was sitting on his mother’s lap. The car continues to drive away.
Vellesiya Wiley denied stealing diapers from the store and she was not charged, according to state and county court records.
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