
They want you to wait. They want you to be patient, to trust the process, to let the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation do its work. They don't want you to say his name.
His name is Hunter Foster.
Three days after Sergeant Hunter Foster fired a bullet through the windshield of a moving vehicle and into the body of a one-year-old baby boy, the Senatobia Police Department still hasn't told the public who pulled the trigger. The officer hasn't been charged. He hasn't been arrested. He's been placed on "administrative leave" — the polite American euphemism for letting the man who killed your child keep his job, keep his benefits, and keep hiding behind a wall of institutional silence.
We won't stay silent. His name is Hunter Foster.
What We Already Know
We have covered this case from the moment it broke. In our first report, A Baby Executed Over Diapers: Senatobia Police Kill 1-Year-Old Kohen Wiley at Walmart, we laid out every fact the police had failed to share: that on June 14, 2026, at approximately 2:05 PM, officers responded to a shoplifting call at the Walmart on U.S. Highway 51 in Senatobia, Mississippi. The alleged crime was stealing Pampers — diapers. Officers encountered two women and a baby in a vehicle. Kohen Wiley's mother was in the passenger seat, holding her one-year-old son. She tried to tell the officers there was a baby in the car. They shot through the windshield anyway.
In our follow-up, Two Calls About Diapers: One Officer Bought Them, Another Executed a Baby, we asked the question this case demands: when police in this country respond to a call about stolen diapers, what are they trained to see — a mother in need, or a target?
Kohen Kartier Wiley was one year old. He never had a chance to be seen as anything other than a threat. Because this is what American policing does to Black children.

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The Officer: Hunter Foster
Sources identify the officer who fired the fatal shot as Sergeant Hunter Foster, affiliated with the DeSoto County Sheriff's Office and the Senatobia Police Department, where he was hired in early 2025 and promoted to sergeant within months of joining. Foster is publicly listed on the Mississippi Training for Impaired Driving Enforcement (MSTIDE) website as a representative of the DeSoto County Sheriff's Office.
The department doesn't want you to know his name. Foster doesn't want you to know his name. But accountability doesn't ask permission.
And here is where it gets worse — far worse — than a single act of lethal recklessness.
Multiple sources indicate that just weeks before he fired the bullet that killed Kohen Wiley, Hunter Foster had been the subject of a formal complaint filed by a fellow officer within his own department — alleging that Foster had been using racial slurs on the job. Not a complaint from the public. From a colleague. Someone who worked beside him and was disturbed enough by what they heard to put it on the record.
Read that again.
The man who shot a one-year-old Black baby boy had been reported by his own colleagues for using racial slurs. And the department that knew about that complaint continued to deploy him anyway.
This is not negligence. This is a policy.
A Department That Protects Its Own
The Senatobia Police Department and DeSoto County Sheriff's Office have had days to be transparent with the public. They have chosen silence instead. No officer named. No body camera footage released. No dash camera footage. No accountability. Just: trust us, wait, let the process work.
Meanwhile, Kohen Wiley's grandfather, Carlos Haynes, is living every day of that wait. "My grandson gone. I just want justice."
His great-grandmother, Carolyn Stokes, said what her community has long known: "Senatobia Police Department get away with too much stuff. It's in the news all the time."
She is right. This is not a department that has earned trust. This is a department with a pattern — and that pattern produced a sergeant with documented complaints about his use of racial slurs, who was then handed a gun and a badge and sent to respond to a call about a Black family and a box of diapers.
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, representing the Wiley family, has stated what any honest person can see: Kohen's mother was trying to tell the officers her baby was in the car. "They fired anyway, leading to the death of an innocent one-year-old."
When protesters gathered outside the Senatobia Walmart on June 16 to demand answers, law enforcement responded with tear gas.
They gassed the people demanding justice for the baby they killed.

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The System Built to Protect Him
The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation will issue a report. It will take time. It will be written in careful, measured language. It will invoke qualified immunity — the doctrine specifically engineered to make it nearly impossible to hold any officer criminally liable for any use of force that can be framed as arising from a moment of perceived threat. It will cite Graham v. Connor and the "reasonable officer" standard — a legal fiction that has shielded killers in uniform for decades.
Hunter Foster will almost certainly never be charged. The system he works inside was built to ensure that.
But we are not a court of law. We are a press that still believes accountability is not optional — and we refuse to let that belief be buried with Kohen Wiley.
Hunter Foster shot a gun into a vehicle carrying a one-year-old baby, over a box of Pampers. He had been flagged weeks earlier by his own colleagues for using racial slurs on the job. His department knew — and deployed him anyway. And now they are asking you to be patient while they investigate themselves.
What Must Happen
Hunter Foster must be charged. Not placed on leave — charged.
The Senatobia Police Department and DeSoto County Sheriff's Office must release every piece of footage in their possession: body cameras, dash cameras, Walmart surveillance video — all of it, now.
The internal complaint alleging Foster's use of racial slurs must be independently investigated and made public — not buried, not shredded, not quietly handled in a back office.
Every supervisor and department leader who knew about complaints against Hunter Foster and continued to shield him must be held accountable alongside him.
And if Mississippi refuses — and Mississippi's history tells us exactly what Mississippi will do — the Department of Justice must intervene.
Kohen Wiley's grandmother Lasandra Williams said it without flinching: "Everybody that was involved needs to be held accountable."
Everybody.
Starting with Hunter Foster.
#KohenWiley #JusticeForKohen #HunterFoster #SayHisName
Sources & Methodology(9 sources)
Independent investigative report identifying Sergeant Hunter Foster as the officer who killed Kohen Wiley, documenting his history of escalatory tactics across multiple jurisdictions and his employment at DeSoto County Sheriff's Office and Senatobia Police Department.
Mississippi Training for Impaired Driving Enforcement official team roster publicly listing Hunter Foster as a representative of the DeSoto County Sheriff's Office, corroborating his law enforcement affiliation.
- Common Dreams — Family Seeks Answers, Justice After Mississippi Cop Kills Toddler Kohen WileyNews Article
National coverage of the Kohen Wiley killing including family statements from grandfather Carlos Haynes, attorney Ben Crump's statement that officers 'fired anyway,' and grandmother Lasandra Williams demanding full accountability.
Mississippi Free Press reporting on the June 14, 2026 Senatobia Walmart shooting, including the timeline of events, official MBI account, family dispute of the police narrative, and great-grandmother Carolyn Stokes' statement about the Senatobia Police Department.
Confirms the officer involved in the killing of Kohen Wiley was placed on administrative leave following the June 14 shooting. Officer's name not released by department. Body cam, dash cam, and Walmart surveillance footage under MBI review.
TheGrio coverage of the Kohen Wiley killing documenting the police account that the driver 'drove in the direction of officers,' the family's account that the mother tried to signal officers about the baby, and the windshield bullet holes consistent with shots fired into the vehicle.
- WBIR/KTVB — Protests in Mississippi After Police Shoot into Vehicle, Killing One-Year-Old BoyNews Article
Wire report on community protests in Senatobia following the killing of Kohen Wiley. Documents that his mother was holding him in the front passenger seat while his aunt drove, and that the family denied any shoplifting occurred.
Documents law enforcement's use of tear gas against community members gathered outside the Senatobia Walmart on June 16, 2026 to demand accountability for the killing of 1-year-old Kohen Wiley.
WREG witness account placing two women exiting the Walmart, one carrying diapers and one carrying infant Kohen Wiley, heading to their vehicle — directly contradicting the framing of a violent confrontation and supporting the family's account.
Methodology
Officer identification sourced from independent reporting by journalist Shannon Evans and corroborated by the publicly available MSTIDE.us team directory, which lists Hunter Foster as a representative of the DeSoto County Sheriff's Office. The internal racial slur complaint is sourced from multiple independent sources. All family quotes are drawn from WREG, Action News 5, Common Dreams, and TheGrio. This investigation is ongoing.
Filed Under
Frequently Asked Questions
- Who is Hunter Foster?
- Sources identify Hunter Foster as a Sergeant affiliated with the DeSoto County Sheriff's Office and the Senatobia Police Department, where he was hired in early 2025 and promoted to sergeant within months. He is publicly listed on the Mississippi Training for Impaired Driving Enforcement (MSTIDE) website as a DeSoto County representative.
- Was there a prior complaint against Hunter Foster?
- Multiple sources indicate that weeks before the June 14, 2026 shooting of Kohen Wiley, Foster was the subject of a formal complaint by a fellow officer alleging use of racial slurs on the job. The department is alleged to have taken no meaningful action on that complaint before deploying Foster on the call that killed Kohen Wiley.
- Has Hunter Foster been charged?
- As of publication, Hunter Foster has been placed on administrative leave — standard procedure after an officer-involved shooting. He has not been charged with any crime. The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation is conducting the investigation and will submit findings to the Mississippi Attorney General's Office.
- Who is representing Kohen Wiley's family?
- The Wiley family is represented by civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who stated that Kohen's mother tried to signal officers about the baby in the car and that 'they fired anyway, leading to the death of an innocent one-year-old.'
- What happened to the protesters outside the Walmart?
- When community members gathered outside the Senatobia Walmart on June 16, 2026 to demand justice for Kohen Wiley, law enforcement deployed tear gas against the protesters.

