In tragic, but unfortunately consistent news, Mississippi’s Attorney General Lynn Fitch’s determined that a police officer was justified in using deadly force when he fired into a vehicle while responding to a shoplifting call, killing a 1-year-old boy whose death sparked protests and drew national attention.
“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,” the AG’s office said in the statement. “In this incident, the Attorney General’s Office found the use of force was justified.”
The toddler was identified as Kohen Wiley and was sitting in his mother’s car when an officer opened fire on the vehicle, according to the family’s attorneys.
The incident has sparked national outrage, with many protests in Senatobia, where community members and civil rights advocates demanded accountability and the arrest of the officer who killed Wiley. The child’s family, represented by civil rights attorney Ben Crump, has repeatedly questioned officers’ account of the incident and called for greater transparency throughout the investigation.
“A 1-year-old baby was shot and killed by a police officer, and now the state of Mississippi says that use of force was justified,” Crump said in a statement. “How can anyone accept that conclusion when Kohen’s family and the public still have not been allowed to see the body-camera footage?”
State investigators said officers from the Senatobia Police Department and Tate County Sheriff’s Office responded to a reported shoplifting incident at a Walmart in Senatobia on June 14. Upon arrival, officers saw two people and a child allegedly fleeing from the store into a vehicle.
Officers tried to stop the vehicle as the driver allegedly drove toward them, according to the Mississippi Department of Public Safety. One officer shot into the vehicle as it fled the scene, and the bullet fatally struck the child, who was not in a car seat.
The suspects arrived at a local hospital, where Wiley was pronounced dead. The parents sustained non-life-threatening injuries.
Wiley was sitting in his mother’s car when an officer opened fire on it, Crump said in a statement June 16. He said Wiley’s mother, Vellesiya Wiley, was trying to notify officers that the child was in the car before the shooting.
The child’s mother has disputed the officers’ account. She previously said she was in the vehicle with her son and a friend when officers approached with guns drawn. She said she lifted her son to show officers that a child was in the vehicle and shots were fired moments later.
“By the time I sat my baby down, it was like three to four shots,” she said in a video shared with USA TODAY by Crump’s office. “One of the shots hit him in his rib cage. And the other shots hit her in her arm and her thigh.”
Authorities have said the friend was suspected of shoplifting diapers. The woman who was wounded has not been charged with a crime.
