A 1-year-old is dead, and the official conclusion is that nothing wrong happened. That should disturb everyone, including those who think police deserve the benefit of the doubt. Officer Hunter Foster has resigned, which will be treated as closure. It is nothing of the kind.
Start with how this began. A reported shoplifting incident. Not a hostage situation, not an active shooter, not a fleeing murder suspect. A retail theft call outside a Walmart ended with a toddler shot dead in a car. Whatever else is disputed, that sequence of events is not.
Now the footage, as described by the state's own account. The vehicle backed into a parked car. As it moved forward, Foster stepped aside, put a hand on the hood and fired. A man who has moved out of a vehicle's path is a man who has just shown he could. Foster's lawyer says he had no choice and that the driver tried to kill officers. That is an advocate's claim, and nothing in the released account supports treating it as settled fact. The state says the vehicle moved toward officers. A car rolling forward in a parking lot is not the same as an officer facing certain death, and the difference is what a child's life hung on.
This is why "justified" is the most damning word in the story. It is a legal finding, and the legal standard is a large part of the scandal. Under Graham v. Connor, the question is whether the force was objectively reasonable given the totality of the circumstances, judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene. That sounds like a broad inquiry. In practice, many courts and reviewers train their attention on the instant before the trigger pull, and whether officers' own earlier choices count is a question on which the federal circuits have split. Where the narrow view prevails, it does not ask why officers approached a car in a way that put them in its path. It does not ask why a shoplifting call produced gunfire. It asks whether the officer's fear was plausible, and fear is easy to find plausible when the person afraid is the one holding the gun.
There is a better rule, and serious police institutions already know it. Policing's own research bodies have long urged departments to bar shooting at moving vehicles except in narrow circumstances, because bullets rarely stop a car, can leave a dead or wounded driver behind the wheel, and endanger everyone inside. The Justice Department adopted a policy along those lines for its own agents. Those are the rules professionals write when they are thinking about outcomes rather than excuses. Mississippi's legal bar is far lower, and a child paid for the gap.
Then there is the resignation. It lets the city announce movement without delivering consequence. A resignation is not a firing, and it is not a finding of misconduct. The questions that matter are whether Foster's certification is reviewed and whether he can put on another badge in another town. America has a long, ugly record of officers who leave one department under a cloud and turn up in the next. Voluntary departure is how that pipeline starts.
Call the investigation what it is, too. State authorities cleared a state-licensed officer in a state with a long history of protecting its own. The family is right to want outside eyes. But Ben Crump's call for a federal investigation collides with reality. The current Justice Department has retreated from police oversight, abandoned consent decrees and signaled that civil rights enforcement against local police is no longer a priority. The family is asking an institution that has walked away from the job.
That leaves the public, and local officials who make the rules. City councils and legislators decide use-of-force policy. They can ban shooting at moving vehicles, require de-escalation before approaching a car in a nonviolent call, and publish the footage and findings promptly. If the law says this killing was fine, the law is what has to change.
Kohen Wiley will not grow up. A system that can kill a baby over an alleged shoplifting call, certify it as justified and then hold a resignation as the final act has not delivered justice. It has delivered paperwork.
