Police chief in Mississippi town where 1-year-old was killed has been fired

Adria R. Walker, The Guardian

Senatobia, where white officer shot and killed Kohen Wiley, terminates chief who reportedly used racist slurs in texts.

Late Tuesday, the city of Senatobia, Mississippi fired its police chief, Harold Vanderford, after it was reported that Vanderford regularly used racist slurs against Black people in his text messages. The town, which is about 40% Black, made national news earlier this year after a white officer fatally shot and killed Kohen Wiley, a one-year-old Black baby, while responding to a shoplifting call at Walmart. Officers fired into a vehicle, shooting the driver and killing the toddler, who was being held in his mother’s arms.

Though Vanderford submitted a resignation letter earlier on 1 September, the city’s board of aldermen unanimously voted to reject it and to terminate the officer instead. Vanderford’s firing came just under a week after the city wrote in a statement that, despite the messages, he would “continue to serve the City with the confidence that was placed in him at the time that he was appointed as Chief”

[…]

Senatobia has been embroiled in recent controversies involving police and Black residents, specifically children. In 2023, Senatobia made national news after an officer arrested and placed in a cell a 10-year-old Black boy who had urinated in public. The child was later sentenced to three months’ probation.

Read more about the details of Vanderford’s termination here.

Explore our virtual exhibit, Black Lives Matter.

Back to Breaking News