The family of a 1-year-old boy who was fatally shot when a police officer fired into a moving vehicle in Mississippi said Thursday they do not believe the shooting was justified after reviewing videos from officers' body-worn cameras at the scene.
Kohen Wiley's close relatives watched the footage shot during the June encounter in a Walmart parking lot in Senatobia, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) south of Memphis, Tennessee. The video included footage from
the camera worn by the Senatobia police officer who shot and killed Kohen.
Kohen would have celebrated his second birthday in early November, civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is representing Kohen’s family, said during a news conference Thursday.
Earlier this week, a state investigation cleared Sgt. Hunter Foster of criminal wrongdoing in the shooting that happened as he and other officers chased two women accused of shoplifting. The Mississippi Attorney General's Office said its review found the fatal shooting was a justified use of force.
“The word ‘justified’ has haunted me,” Kohen's maternal grandmother, Veronica Roberson, said during the news conference. “There’s no justification for that.”
Roberson said she found out from reading the news that the state had cleared the officer, and she also saw parts of the video that had been leaked online Wednesday. She called the lack of notice from the AG's office and the leak of the footage a “slap in the face” to her family.
The footage is expected to be released to media Thursday afternoon.
Crump said the officers' response — running at the vehicle with guns drawn to apprehend alleged shoplifters — was excessive and reckless.
Kohen’s mother, Vellesiya Wiley, previously denied that she and her friend stole diapers from the store and they have not been charged, according to state and county court records.
“Diapers are something a mother needs for a child. Diapers should never cost a baby their life,” Crump said. “This decision sends a message that a Black baby boy, his life, is not as valuable as the white diapers that he is wrapped in.”
Martin Zummach, an attorney representing Foster, has said the footage vindicates his client because he was in danger from the moving vehicle and had “no choice” but to fire his gun.
“She came right at Hunter Foster and the other officer and he had to shoot his weapon,” Zummach said.
Vellesiya Wiley has disputed that her friend, who was driving, headed toward the officers.
Crump said the footage shows the fatal shot came from the side of the car, disputing that Foster was in imminent danger. An independent autopsy commissioned by the family concluded the same. 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.
