The city of Senatobia, Mississippi, fired Police Chief Harold Vanderford late Tuesday, 1 September, after reports surfaced that he had used racist slurs against Black people in text messages. The decision came just under a week after the city had expressed confidence in Vanderford, and it follows the fatal shooting of a Black toddler by police earlier this year.
Chief's termination and resignation rejected
Vanderford submitted a resignation letter on 1 September, but the city's board of aldermen unanimously voted to reject it and instead terminate him. The firing came after the city had written in a statement that, despite the messages, Vanderford would “continue to serve the City with the confidence that was placed in him at the time that he was appointed as Chief.” Angelica Maze, who is Black, has been named interim police chief.
Senatobia, a town that is about 40% Black, made national news earlier this year when a white officer fatally shot 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.
Recent controversies involving police and Black residents
Senatobia has faced multiple controversies involving police and Black residents, particularly children. In 2023, an officer arrested a 10-year-old Black boy who had urinated in public and placed him in a cell. The child was later sentenced to three months on probation. A year before Wiley was killed, at the same Walmart, an officer forced a Black woman from her car in front of her children after she parked in a handicap space to wait for her grandmother. The woman was driving a vehicle with a handicap parking tag.
Last year, the town's elected aldermen moved to replace the previous police chief, who was serving at the time of the 10-year-old's arrest, with Vanderford.
Renewed calls for transparency in Wiley's case
Vanderford's firing has prompted renewed calls for transparency in Wiley's case. State and local law enforcement have said they will not provide updates until their investigation is complete. The toddler's family retained civil-rights attorney Ben Crump, who presented forensic evidence indicating that the officers had not been in harm's way when they fired into the vehicle. An investigation found that Sgt Hunter Foster, identified in reports as the officer who shot the toddler, had made racist and derogatory remarks to a Black colleague just two days before the Walmart shooting.
“Removing [Vanderford] was the right decision, and the Senatobia Board of Aldermen deserves credit for acting. But it does not answer the question Kohen's family has been asking since June 14: what happened to their baby?” Crump said in a statement following Vanderford's firing.
“A 1-year-old was shot and killed by an officer of this department, and nearly three months later his family still has not been allowed to see the footage. The racist language that cost Chief Vanderford his job is exactly why this family cannot simply be told to trust the process. MBI has the footage. Release it, finish the investigation into Sgt Foster, and give this family the facts they have been owed since the day Kohen died.”
The Mississippi legislative Black caucus called on attorney general Lynn Fitch and public safety commissioner Sean Tindell to take immediate action in Wiley's death, demanding that the state establish “a clear point of contact and provide the family with direct, timely and ongoing updates about the investigation.”
