On Monday, the office of the Mississippi attorney general, Lynn Fitch, announced that the police shooting of Kohen Wiley, a one-year-old, as he sat in his mother’s lap “was justified”. The statement came four months after the baby was killed in Senatobia, Mississippi.

On 14 June, officers in Senatobia, a small city near Memphis, were responding to a shoplifting call alleging Vellesiya Wiley, the baby’s mother, and Latoya Ferrell, a friend, had stolen a pack of diapers. Neither woman has been charged with a crime. Officials have not released any evidence of shoplifting.

According to police reports, on the day of the shooting, the women and child exited the store, entered their vehicle and began to leave the parking lot when officers arrived.

The police drew their weapons. Wiley lifted the baby up to indicate that there was a child in the car. An officer, identified by other records as Sgt Hunter Foster, fired into the vehicle, killing Kohen Wiley and wounding Ferrell. Foster is white; both Wileys and Ferrell are Black.

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