Mississippi town fires police chief following racist text message scandal

The board of aldermen in Senatobia, Mississippi voted unanimously late Tuesday to fire police chief Harold Vanderford after it emerged that he had regularly used racist slurs against Black people in his text messages. Vanderford had submitted a resignation letter on 1 September, but the board rejected it and terminated him instead.

Just under a week earlier, the city had issued a statement saying Vanderford would continue serving as chief despite the revelations. Angelica Maze, who is Black, has since been named interim police chief.

Link to toddler's death

Senatobia, a town that is roughly 40% Black, drew national attention earlier this year after a white officer shot and killed Kohen Wiley, a one-year-old Black baby who was being held in his mother's arms, while responding to a shoplifting call at a Walmart. Officers fired into the vehicle, wounding the driver and killing the toddler.

The town has faced repeated controversies involving police and Black residents in recent years, including the 2023 arrest and jailing of a 10-year-old boy for public urination, and an incident a year before Wiley's death in which a Black woman was forced from her car at the same Walmart.

Vanderford's firing has renewed calls for transparency in Wiley's case. Law enforcement agencies have declined to release updates until their investigation concludes. Civil-rights attorney Ben Crump, representing the family, said that nearly three months after the shooting, the family still has not been allowed to view footage of the incident, and he called for its immediate release. An investigation found that Sgt Hunter Foster, identified as the officer who shot the toddler, had made racist remarks to a Black colleague just two days before the shooting. Mississippi's legislative Black caucus has called on state officials to ensure the family receives timely, ongoing updates on the investigation.