The police officer who shot and killed 1-year-old Kohen Wiley in Mississippi while responding to a shoplifting call has resigned. Senatobia mayor confirmed the news to The Associated Press Friday. Sgt. Hunter Foster, 33, had been cleared of criminal wrongdoing by the Mississippi Attorney General’s office earlier this week. The AG’s decision followed a months-long probe that concluded his use of force was justified. Kohen Wiley would have celebrated his second birthday in early November.
RELATED: Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch Rules Police Shooting Of 1-Year-Old Kohen Wiley Justified
Video Of Kohen Wiley’s Shooting Released
On Thursday (Oct. 23), the state released videos of the fatal shooting of Kohen Wiley. The footage includes Foster’s body-worn camera footage of the June 14 encounter in a Walmart parking lot in Senatobia, Tennessee.
On said day, a group of officers was at the Walmart store in response to an unrelated incident, according to a Mississippi Bureau of Investigation report. A Walmart employee then alerted them of two women running from the store. The videos show Kohen’s mother, Vellesiya Wiley, holding Kohen as she and her friend run across the parking lot and enter their vehicle.
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Then, 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 Hunter Foster steps toward it, directly in front, 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, where Kohen was seated on his mother’s lap. The car continues to drive away.
Vellesiya Wiley has denied that she and her friend stole diapers from the store. Also, they have not been charged, according to state and county court records. Previously, Vellesiya, has disputed that her friend, who was driving, headed toward the officers.
Officer Who Shot 1-Year-Old Resigns Amid Exposed Work History
Senatobia Mayor Greg Graves confirmed Hunter Foster’s resignation Friday. Foster’s attorney Martin Zummach declined to comment when reached Friday. Zummach has previously said Foster had “no choice” but to fire his weapon at the vehicle because it was moving at him.
Foster has worked for two other agencies in Mississippi since 2019 after becoming certified as a law enforcement officer there. He worked for the police department in Southaven for two years. Then, the DeSoto County Sheriff’s Office employed him until about October 2024. About five months later, the police department in Senatobia hired him, according to state records obtained by the AP.
A lawsuit filed in federal court in Mississippi in 2021 accused Foster and a group of 12 other Southaven police officers of civil rights violations during a 2019 arrest of two Black men outside a Waffle House.
The two men said they had been searching for a lost set of keys when several officers violently arrested and beat them. They alleged that Foster submitted a report falsely stating that they tried to run over another officer with their vehicle. Foster and the other officers denied wrongdoing. The Southaven police department agreed to settle the case in 2022 for an undisclosed amount, court records show.
Kohen’s Family Wants Officer Banned From Working In Another Department
Ben Crump, an attorney for Kohen Wiley’s family, said the footage shows the fatal shot came from the side of the car. This disputes Foster’s claims of being in imminent danger. An independent autopsy commissioned by the family concluded the same. Additionally, an image of the vehicle shows its shattered right front passenger window. The family’s legal team called for the federal government to investigate the shooting.
“Officer Foster’s resignation is hardly a step toward accountability, and it is certainly not justice,” Crump said in a statement. “Turning in a badge does not erase responsibility for taking a life, and it will not end our fight for justice for Kohen and his family.”
The family’s legal team has called for Hunter Foster to be decertified as a police officer. That way he cannot be hired by another law enforcement agency. Mississippi Department of Public Safety spokesperson Alex Gibert said Friday that Foster remained certified as a police officer.
RELATED: Does Mississippi’s Senatobia Police Department Have A Race Problem? Kohen Wiley’s Shooting & 4 Other Incidents Explained
Associated Press/Report for America writer Jack Brook contributed to this report via AP Newsroom.
