Mississippi AG's Office Says Officer's Force Was Justified in Shooting That Killed 1-Year-Old Kohen Wiley
The attorney general's office says its review of the June 14 Senatobia shooting, which followed a Mississippi Bureau of Investigation probe, found the use of force justified. The family's attorney, Ben Crump, says the body-camera footage should be released.
By Evelyn Shaw, Constitution Explained
Published · 7 min read
The Overview
The facts, straight
BREAKING: Mississippi's attorney general's office on Monday cleared the use of force in the June police shooting of a 1-year-old in Senatobia. Video of the shooting has not been released. This story may be updated. Times ET.
The office of Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch said Monday that a Senatobia police officer's use of force was justified in the June 14 shooting that killed 1-year-old Kohen Wiley in a Walmart parking lot.
"Today, 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. In this incident, the Attorney General's Office found the use of force was justified," the office said in a statement. It said the review followed an investigation by the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation. The one-paragraph statement does not name the officer or describe the evidence.
Under state law, the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation has jurisdiction to investigate officer-involved shootings that cause injury or death, and the attorney general's office is "exclusively responsible" for presenting those shootings to a grand jury. The statement does not say whether this case went before a grand jury.
The BBC reported the finding Monday night:
Post: BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) on X, Oct. 19, 2026, 8:54 p.m. ET.
"Police used 'justified' force in fatal shooting of one-year-old, says Mississippi attorney general"
What investigators have said. Officers were responding to a shoplifting call at the Walmart. Police believed two women had stolen diapers and baby clothes, the Associated Press reported. In a statement the day of the shooting, the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation said officers tried to stop the car, "but the driver drove in the direction of the officers, almost striking one." An officer then fired. Kohen, who was in the car with his mother, was killed, and the driver was critically injured. The bureau called that account preliminary.
What the family says. Kohen's mother, Vellesiya Wiley, has denied that she or her friend stole anything. Neither woman has been charged with shoplifting or any other offense, according to online state and county court records reviewed by the AP. In a video released days after the shooting, Wiley disputed that the car was heading toward the officers, the AP reported. She has said she lifted her son from her lap to show the officers he was in the car, the BBC reported.
The independent autopsy. The family's attorney, Ben Crump, released the findings of an independent autopsy in July. He wrote: "The independent autopsy results are in. The cause of death for baby Kohen Wiley was a gunshot wound to the torso. The manner of death has been ruled a homicide. The bullet entered his body from the right side. Police claimed the driver was driving toward them. If that were true, why was the shot fired from the side?" These are the findings as Crump described them. Radio Purple has not seen the autopsy report. In autopsy findings, "homicide" means a death caused by another person. It is not a legal finding that a crime was committed.
The footage. Authorities have not released body-camera or parking-lot video of the shooting, according to the AP and the BBC. After Monday's announcement, Crump said the footage should be made public:
Post: Ben Crump (@AttorneyCrump) on X, Oct. 19, 2026, 5:24 p.m. ET.
"The Mississippi Attorney General's Office announced it found an officer's use of force was justified in the fatal shooting of 1-year-old Kohen Wiley. How can anyone accept that conclusion when Kohen's family and the public still have not been allowed to see the body-camera footage? … If the footage supports the state's decision, release it. We will not stop fighting until this family gets the truth."
The full post also refers to the firing of the city's police chief, described below, and to a complaint against the officer. Radio Purple has not reviewed that complaint.
The police chief. Senatobia's board of aldermen has fired Police Chief Harold Vanderford, the AP reported. The firing followed reporting by The New York Times, Mississippi Today and Verite News that alleged he used racist slurs in private text messages. The BBC reported that the firing came last month.
What the Left Says
The progressive and Democratic case
Ben Crump, the family's attorney, and activist Marquell Bridges say the state reached its conclusion before the public could see the evidence. A use-of-force expert quoted by the AP questions whether it was safe to fire at the car at all.
Crump wrote Monday, "How can anyone accept that conclusion when Kohen's family and the public still have not been allowed to see the body-camera footage?" He has pointed to the independent autopsy as evidence that the shot came from the side. "Police claimed the driver was driving toward them. If that were true, why was the shot fired from the side?" he wrote in July.
Marquell Bridges, an activist who has worked with the family, called for the video to be released. "His family deserves the truth. The public deserves transparency," Bridges said in a statement quoted by the AP. "We will not be silent. We will not look away. And we will not allow the life of a Black child to be treated as though it means nothing."
John P. Gross, whom the AP describes as an expert on police use of force on moving vehicles, told the AP that if the car had been moving toward officers, the best practice would have been for them to get out of the way. "This shooting was almost certainly unjustified," Gross said. "In terms of both officer safety, the safety of the occupants of the vehicle and general public safety, you don't shoot vehicles."
Where Reality Likely Sits
Radio Purple's analysis
The central fact is disputed, and the public cannot yet check it. State investigators say the car was driven toward officers. Kohen's mother says it was not. The family's attorney says an independent autopsy shows a shot from the side. The attorney general's statement does not explain how it resolved those accounts, and no video has been released. Charles "Joe" Key, a former Baltimore police lieutenant and ballistics expert who the AP says typically testifies in defense of police, said a photo of the car after the shooting suggests the officer fired from the side. He also said, "The body-worn camera's going to have to tell if anybody was in danger."
Releasing the footage is one point where both sides' arguments meet. Crump says that "if the footage supports the state's decision, release it." Zummach says his client "had no choice." Video of the encounter could let the public see what each side describes.
Published standards on shooting at moving vehicles differ. The Justice Department's policy for its own officers says "Firearms may not be discharged solely to disable moving vehicles." It allows firing at a moving vehicle only if someone inside threatens deadly force by other means, or if "the vehicle is operated in a manner that threatens to cause death or serious physical injury to the officer or others, and no other objectively reasonable means of defense appear to exist, which includes moving out of the path of the vehicle." The Police Executive Research Forum goes further. Its Guiding Principle #8 says "Shooting at vehicles must be prohibited" unless "someone in the vehicle is using or threatening deadly force by means other than the vehicle itself." The attorney general's statement does not say what the Senatobia Police Department's own policy requires, or which standard the review applied.
Whether the state releases the body-camera and parking-lot video will decide how much of this the public can judge for itself.
What the Right Says
The conservative and Republican case
The officer's attorney says his client faced a car driven at him and other officers. The finding came from a state review conducted outside the city police department.
Martin Zummach, an attorney for the officer who fired, told the AP that the attorney general's findings cleared his client of criminal wrongdoing. He said the driver "tried to kill" his client and other officers who were present. "He had no choice but to fire his weapon," Zummach said.
The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, a state agency, investigated. Then the attorney general's office, which has sole responsibility for taking officer-involved shootings to a grand jury, reviewed the bureau's findings and found the force justified. In the bureau's account, the car was driven "in the direction of the officers, almost striking one."
The Justice Department's use-of-force policy quotes the Supreme Court's standard for judging police force: "police officers are often forced to make split-second judgments—in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving—about the amount of force that is necessary in a particular situation," and reasonableness "must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight."
Sources & Citations
- Office of the Mississippi Attorney General, “Statement on Officer-Involved Shooting”, October 19, 2026.
- Justia (Mississippi Code), “Mississippi Code § 45-1-6 (officer-involved shooting investigations)”, January 1, 2025.
- X (@AttorneyCrump), “Ben Crump post on X (attorney general's finding)”, October 19, 2026.
- X (@AttorneyCrump), “Ben Crump post on X (independent autopsy)”, July 2, 2026.
- U.S. Department of Justice, “Justice Manual 1-16.200, Use of Deadly Force”, July 1, 2022.
- Police Executive Research Forum, “Guiding Principles on Use of Force (Principle #8)”, March 1, 2016.
- Associated Press (via ABC News), “Mississippi AG says officer's force was justified during shoplifting call in which boy was killed”, October 19, 2026.
- BBC News, “Police used 'justified' force in fatal shooting of one-year-old, says Mississippi attorney general”, October 19, 2026.
- X (@BBCWorld), “BBC News (World) post on X”, October 19, 2026.
Positions above are attributed to the public statements and published reporting cited here. Quotations are taken from these sources; Radio Purple does not publish unattributed or invented quotes. See an error? Request a correction.
