Mississippi Cleared the Officer in Four Months. The Video Still Isn't Public.

Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch's office announced on October 19 that a Senatobia police officer's use of force was justified when he fired into a vehicle on June 14, killing 1-year-old Kohen Wiley and wounding Latoya Ferrell. The finding closed the state's criminal review four months after the shooting, with no charges and no grand jury.

The state's conclusion rests on an inquiry by the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation. What the public can weigh it against remains limited. Neither Vellesiya Wiley nor Ferrell has been charged with a crime, and officials have not released evidence of the shoplifting allegation that brought officers to the Walmart parking lot.

The family's attorney, Ben Crump, denounced the finding and called for the release of footage from the incident. An independent autopsy released by the family indicated the bullet entered through the side window — meaning, on that account, the officer was not standing in the vehicle's path when he fired. That reading sits against the account that the car was driven toward police.

The attorney general's statement did not name Kohen or identify the officer involved. The office's announcement gave a conclusion without the underlying record.

That gap is the substance of the dispute. The family is left with an official finding it rejects and an autopsy it commissioned. The state is left with a conclusion it has not substantiated in public.

Mississippi's review is closed. The questions it did not answer in public are not.