The Mississippi police officer who fired the shot that killed 1-year-old Kohen Wiley has resigned, and Senatobia’s board of aldermen accepted that resignation on Wednesday, Oct. 21. Mayor Greg Graves confirmed the move Friday afternoon after the case had already been reviewed by state investigators.
The resignation gives the case its clearest new development since the shooting in a Walmart parking lot on June 14, when multiple shots were fired during an alleged shoplifting pursuit. Wiley was inside a vehicle with his mother and a friend who was driving at the time, and the officer, Hunter Foster, had been on administrative leave while the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation looked into what happened.
That review ended this week with a conclusion that the use of force by the Senatobia Police Department was justified and that no charges will be filed. Police body camera footage and surveillance video were also released on Thursday, and the images brought the case back into public view at the same moment the resignation became final. For the family, the release did not settle anything. For the department, it closed the internal chapter.
Veronica Roberson said she watched the video Thursday morning and described it as disgusting. “I feel like we have been done wrong,” she said, adding that she saw “an officer come from the inside of Walmart, not knowing what's going on, and run out with guns drawn. There's no justification for that.” Her reaction captures why this case still cuts so sharply: the state found the shooting justified, while the family’s lawyer, Ben Crump, called the officer’s actions excessive and said the family is seeking a federal investigation.
Crump also argued that the death of a 1-year-old over an allegation of shoplifting cannot be squared with the force used. Family attorneys have said shoplifting charges were never filed in the case, even as Martin Zummach said Foster had no choice but to fire because the fleeing car was driving toward him. The resignation now ends Foster’s role in Senatobia, but it does not end the dispute over whether the shooting was a lawful split-second decision or a fatal overreaction. That fight now shifts beyond the local board room and into whatever review, if any, comes next.
