Mississippi Officer Who Fatally Shot 1-Year-Old Kohen Wiley Through a Car Window Resigns

On Friday, the mayor of Senatobia, Mississippi, confirmed that Hunter Foster, the police officer who fired into a moving car outside a Walmart in June and killed a 1-year-old boy, has resigned. Mayor Greg Graves told CBS News of the resignation.

The boy was Kohen Wiley. The shooting happened on June 14, and it came out of a response to an alleged shoplifting incident. Senatobia officers and Tate County sheriff's deputies were already at the Walmart on an unrelated call when they approached a car that was backing out of a parking space. They yelled for it to stop. When the car moved forward, Foster opened fire.

Body camera footage shows the car backing into a parked vehicle as the officers converged on it with their guns drawn. When the car then moves forward, Foster is seen moving out of its path, putting one hand down on the hood as shots from his weapon ring out. The front passenger window shatters and the car drives away.

Kohen's mother, Vellesiya Wiley, described what led up to it in a social media video after the shooting. She said she was at the Walmart with a friend. After the friend bought diapers at a self-checkout kiosk, a man stopped her at the exit, while Wiley kept walking outside. Security camera footage shows the friend speaking with that man. When she went outside, the two women ran to the car, and the man went to get the officers.

Wiley said she sat in the passenger seat while her friend drove. As officers ran toward the car, she said, she held Kohen up so they could see a child was inside. "So she was backing up, and she hit a car as I was opening the door, so the door flew back in. By the time I sat my baby down, it was like three to four shots," she said. One shot struck Kohen in the ribcage, and her friend was wounded in the arm and thigh. They drove to a hospital, where Kohen was pronounced dead.

The resignation follows an announcement on Monday from the Mississippi attorney general's office that the use of force was justified. Foster's lawyer, Martin Zummach, has said his client had no choice because the car was moving at him. In a statement Friday, Zummach accused the driver, who has not been charged, of trying to kill the officers. "Hunter Foster had no choice but to discharge his weapon. We are very sad for the loss of life," he said.

Whether the driver will face charges is not yet settled. District Attorney Jay Hale said his office would review the case now that the attorney general has ruled on the police use of force. "Once we are able to fully discuss this case with the investigating agency, we will make a decision as to any future grand jury presentations," Hale said.

Ben Crump, the civil rights attorney representing Kohen's family, responded to the resignation by calling on the Department of Justice to open an investigation. "Accountability can't end here. Body camera footage shows how quickly this escalated over an alleged shoplifting call," he said on social media. Next to watch: the district attorney's review of the driver's case and whether federal officials take up Crump's request.