Mississippi officer who fatally shot 1-year-old during shoplifting call has resigned

Hunter Foster, the Senatobia, Mississippi, police sergeant who fatally shot a 1-year-old boy while firing into a moving car in June, has resigned, Senatobia Mayor Greg Graves told the Associated Press on Friday, according to reports carried by PBS NewsHour, The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Anchorage Daily News.

Accounts differ on timing. WLBT reported that Foster, 33, stepped down during a special Board of Aldermen meeting on Tuesday. The station also reported that interim Police Chief Angelica Maze resigned from that post Friday but will stay with the department. Lamorris Hampton, previously second in command, was named interim chief, WLBT said. The reason for Maze's departure was not clear.

The resignations followed the Mississippi Attorney General's office clearing Foster of criminal wrongdoing earlier in the week after a monthslong review found his use of force justified, the AP reported. On Thursday, the state released videos of the June 14 shooting in a Walmart parking lot in Senatobia, roughly 40 miles south of Memphis.

According to an investigative report cited by the AP, officers were at the store on an unrelated matter when an employee pointed out two women running from the building. The footage shows the boy's mother carrying him to a car with a friend. Five officers approach with guns drawn. The car backs into a parked vehicle, then moves forward as Foster stands in front of it. The wheels turn away from him and he appears to jump aside before firing, breaking the front passenger window where the child sat on his mother's lap.

The mother has denied that the women took diapers, and neither has been charged, court records show, the AP reported.

Foster's attorney, Martin Zummach, declined to comment Friday but has previously said Foster had no choice but to shoot because the car was moving toward him. The family's attorneys dispute that. Ben Crump said the footage shows the fatal shot came from the side, and a family-commissioned autopsy reached the same conclusion, the AP reported. The family's legal team has asked for a federal investigation.

Another family attorney, Van Turner, wants Foster's certification revoked "so that he's not able to go to another police department and do the same thing," he said Thursday, according to the AP. A state Department of Public Safety spokesperson said Foster remained certified.

Foster previously worked for the Southaven Police Department and the DeSoto County Sheriff's Office. A 2021 federal lawsuit accused him and 12 other Southaven officers of civil rights violations in a 2019 arrest; they denied wrongdoing, and the city settled in 2022, the AP reported.

The city's former police chief, Harold Vanderford, was fired last month after news reports alleged he used racist slurs in private texts. Alderman Demetrius Garrett told WLBT, "People just don't leave a job for any reason."

Compiled by True News from reporting by The Philadelphia Inquirer, PBS NewsHour, WLBT and Anchorage Daily News. Each outlet's original story is linked below.

Originally published by True News: https://truenews.bagleyenterprises.net/stories/401