Mississippi finds force justified in Kohen Wiley’s killing, but leaves the evidence unexplained

One year old. That was Kohen Wiley’s age when a Senatobia police officer fired toward the car where his mother was holding him during a response to a shoplifting call involving diapers. Four months after his death, Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch’s office announced on October 19, 2026, that the officer’s use of force was justified, closing the state investigation. The driver was also shot and seriously wounded. ^{1 2}

The decision supplies an official conclusion, but not a public explanation of the crucial disputed moment: what danger the car presented when the officer opened fire. Investigators reviewed several kinds of video. The attorney general’s announcement does not say what those recordings showed or how they supported the finding. ^{1 2}

The shooting happened on June 14, 2026, in a Walmart parking lot in Senatobia, Mississippi. Officials said the diaper-related call involved Kohen’s mother and the woman driving the car, identified by WMC/Gray News as his great-aunt. Kohen and his mother were in the back seat. He died from his injuries; the driver survived. The allegation that brought police to the parking lot was shoplifting, not an adjudicated theft. ^{1 2}

That sentence is the substance of the decision. The complete announcement, reproduced by WAPT, says the office completed its review of the June 14 incident involving one Senatobia officer, following an investigation by the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation. It cites Section 45-1-6 of the Mississippi Code for that review, but offers no analysis of a substantive use-of-force standard. This is the attorney general’s finding, not a jury verdict. ²

The initial state account described a near collision. “Officers attempted to stop the vehicle, but the driver drove in the direction of the officers, almost striking one,” investigators said. “An officer then discharged their weapon and the vehicle fled the scene.” Senatobia police described the officer as believing the driver was moving toward him. ^{1 2}

Those accounts are related, but they are not identical. One asserts that a vehicle nearly struck an officer; the other describes an officer’s perception. Neither, on its own, establishes that the driver deliberately tried to run an officer over. The newly announced finding does not publicly explain the vehicle’s speed or path, where the officer stood, or the timing of the gunfire in relation to its movement. ^{1 2}

Kohen’s mother disputed that the car was driving toward the officer. In June, she told the Mississippi Free Press that she raised her child when officers pointed guns toward the vehicle. Her description is a witness account, not an independently established reconstruction. But it directly challenges the premise on which the official explanation for the gunfire has rested. The October announcement does not reconcile the two accounts. ^{7 2}

The state investigation was not conducted without recordings. The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation assigned five agents, gathered statements and reviewed witness accounts, body-camera video, dashcam video and Walmart surveillance footage, according to WMC/Gray’s October 19 report. By September, the completed investigation had gone to the attorney general’s office. Investigators’ access to that evidence, however, is not the same as public access to it. ^{1 28}

The announcement does not identify the officer, set out a sequence of shots or discuss Kohen’s location in relation to the gunfire. Its reference to an incident involving one officer does not establish that only one officer was present. The officer who fired was placed on administrative leave after the shooting, which city leaders described as standard practice following a deadly police shooting; that earlier action does not establish the officer’s current duty status. ^{2 1}

The family retained attorneys Ben Crump and Van Turner on June 16. By June 22, they were publicly seeking answers, police video and an independent autopsy. Kohen’s mother described the loss that month: “I watched him take his last breath. I’m still in disbelief.” ^{15 16}

At the June 22 news conference, Crump contrasted the allegation that brought officers to Walmart with the result: “They were called over a box of diapers, and a family now has to bury their baby.” He also argued that a one-year-old could not put his hands up and posed no threat to armed officers. Those comments preceded the October decision; they were not a response to it. ²

Crump separately questioned what officers knew about the passengers. He pointed to their own account describing two women and a child getting into the car, and challenged the decision to fire with a child inside. “They want us to believe that it was a life-or-death situation,” he said earlier. “They told us that, but they have not showed us that.” ¹

The child’s presence does not, by itself, resolve whether the vehicle threatened an officer. Nor does a shoplifting allegation settle whether a later use of force was justified. But those distinctions make the missing explanation more important, not less: the public needs the evidence connecting the alleged danger to the decision to shoot.

On June 30, family counsel announced a presentation of pathologist Dr. Roger Mitchell’s review of the gunshot wound’s entry and exit, while demanding police and Walmart video. That announcement does not establish the review’s forensic conclusions, and it cannot support a claim here about bullet trajectory. An August 25 release renewed the demand for body-camera and surveillance footage. The family’s campaign has also sought dashcam recordings and the investigative findings. Those requests document what the family wanted disclosed, not the current release status of every recording. ^{17 18 14}

WAPT said it sought comment from Crump after the attorney general’s announcement but published no response. That absence is not acceptance of the finding. The wounded driver’s longer-term recovery is also not established in the available reporting. ^{2 1}

The state review is now closed. The announcement does not address a federal investigation, civil lawsuit or separate disciplinary proceeding, and the available record does not establish that any is pending. There is no announced next hearing or release date. What remains is a consequential gap: Mississippi has declared the force justified without publicly showing how the evidence resolves the disputed danger from the car. ²