The finding clears the officer of criminal wrongdoing, but the child’s family continues to dispute the state’s account of the shooting.
JACKSON, Miss. — Mississippi’s attorney general has concluded that a Senatobia police officer was justified in firing at a moving vehicle during a June shoplifting response that killed 1-year-old Kohen Wiley, a decision that closes the state’s criminal review of the officer’s actions while leaving major disagreements over what happened.
The finding follows a Mississippi Bureau of Investigation inquiry into the June 14 shooting outside a Walmart in Senatobia, about 40 miles south of Memphis, Tennessee. State investigators have said officers tried to stop a vehicle carrying Kohen, his mother, Vellesiya Wiley, and another woman when the driver moved toward officers and nearly struck one of them. An officer then fired into the vehicle, killing Kohen and seriously wounding the driver.
Martin Zummach, an attorney representing the officer who fired the fatal shot, said the attorney general’s decision means his client has been cleared of criminal wrongdoing. Zummach has maintained that the vehicle posed an immediate threat to officers and that the officer fired because he believed lives were in danger. The attorney general’s conclusion accepts the state investigation’s determination that the use of force was legally justified.
Kohen’s family disputes that account. Vellesiya Wiley has said the driver was moving away from officers, not toward them, when gunfire began. She also has denied that she or her friend stole merchandise from the Walmart. Police had responded to a report involving suspected theft of diapers and baby clothing, but online state and county court records reviewed by The Associated Press showed that neither woman had been charged with shoplifting or other offenses connected to the encounter.
The family’s attorney, civil rights lawyer Ben Crump, has also challenged the state’s conclusion. A preliminary independent autopsy requested by the family suggested Kohen was struck from the side of the vehicle rather than from the front, according to Crump. He has said that finding raises questions about where the officer was positioned and whether the vehicle was moving directly toward police when the shot was fired.
Crump has stressed that the independent pathologist did not have access to all of the evidence gathered by investigators. The family has sought body-camera video, dashboard-camera recordings and surveillance footage that could show the vehicle’s movement and the positions of officers in the moments before the shooting. Authorities have not publicly released the body-camera footage cited by the family as potentially central to resolving the conflicting accounts.
The shooting occurred after Senatobia officers responded to the Walmart and saw Wiley carrying her son as she and a friend left the store and entered a vehicle. The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation said shortly afterward that officers attempted to stop the car and that its driver traveled in the direction of officers, nearly striking one. The vehicle left after the officer fired, and the women later reached a hospital, where Kohen was pronounced dead.
The case drew protests and national attention as Kohen’s relatives and civil rights advocates called for accountability. It also came during a period of strained relations between some Black residents and the Senatobia Police Department. Other police encounters in recent years had already led to criticism of the department, and the city later fired Police Chief Harold Vanderford after reports alleged he used racist slurs in private text messages. City officials did not publicly tie his firing solely to Kohen’s death.
The attorney general’s finding resolves the question of whether the state will treat the officer’s actions as criminal based on the investigation reviewed by the office. It does not end the broader dispute over the circumstances of the shooting. Kohen’s family and its attorneys continue to seek release of video from the encounter, arguing that the public should be able to examine the evidence behind the state’s conclusion.
Author note: Last updated October 20, 2026.