{"id":888306,"date":"2026-10-20T01:18:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T01:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/888306\/"},"modified":"2026-10-20T01:18:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T01:18:11","slug":"mississippi-ag-says-police-shooting-that-killed-1-year-old-was-justified","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/888306\/","title":{"rendered":"Mississippi AG says police shooting that killed 1-year-old was \u2018justified\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

The fatal shooting of a 1-year-old by a Mississippi police officer who fired at a vehicle while responding to a shoplifting call was a \u201cjustified\u201d use of force, the state attorney general said Monday.<\/p>\n

Attorney General Lynn Fitch\u2019s office issued the brief statement four months after Kohen Wiley was killed<\/a> when an officer shot at a car that police said was fleeing from a Walmart parking lot in Senatobia.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday, the Office of the Attorney General announced it has completed the review of a June 14, 2026, incident in Senatobia involving one officer with the Senatobia Police Department,\u201d the AG\u2019s office said in the statement. \u201cIn this incident, the Attorney General\u2019s Office found the use of force was justified.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AttorneyMississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch’s office released its findings on the shooting.Rogelio V. Solis \/ AP<\/p>\n

The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation conducted the investigation.<\/p>\n

In a statement, an attorney for Wiley\u2019s family questioned the investigation\u2019s conclusions and urged the department to release body camera video from the shooting.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the footage supports the state\u2019s decision, release it,\u201d Ben Crump said in the statement. \u201cWe will not stop fighting until this family gets the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was no immediate response from Wiley\u2019s family, which has for months been taking part in protests demanding justice for the slain boy in the small town 40 miles south of Memphis, Tennessee. <\/p>\n

The shooting happened after the responding officers arrived at Walmart and saw \u201ctwo subjects and a juvenile child fleeing from the store into a vehicle,\u201d the MBI said.<\/p>\n

Kohen\u2019s mother, whom her lawyer identified as Vellesiya Wiley, was a passenger. Her friend was driving. <\/p>\n

\u201cOfficers attempted to stop the vehicle, but the driver drove in the direction of the officers, almost striking one,\u201d the MBI said in a June 14 report<\/a>. \u201cAn 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kohen\u2019s mother has disputed that account. <\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

In a video Crump posted on social media in June<\/a>, 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 \u201cI kept walking because it had nothing to do with me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the time me and my baby got in the car, she came,\u201d Wiley said of her friend. <\/p>\n

They encountered police as they began to back out, Wiley said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI raised my baby up trying to show them that he was in the car,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

In that moment, Wiley\u2019s friend inadvertently hit another car while Wiley\u2019s door was open. <\/p>\n

\"AA memorial for Kohen Wiley outside the Walmart in Senatobia where he was fatally shot in the parking lot.Andrea Morales for NBC News<\/p>\n

Wiley said her friend did not try to hit the officers. \u201cThey was all on the right side, and she was driving towards the left,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

In July, the family\u2019s lawyers, Crump and Van Turner, released a preliminary autopsy report that they contend showed that the bullet that killed the child and wounded the driver was fired through one side of the car, fueling fresh questions about whether the shooting was justified.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis mother, who has not been charged with any crime, says she was trying to communicate to officers that there was a baby in the car,\u201d Crump said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The fatal shooting of a 1-year-old by a Mississippi police officer who fired at a vehicle while responding…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":888307,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-888306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=888306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888306\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/888307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=888306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=888306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=888306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}