The police chief of a northern Mississippi city where 1-year-old Black child Kohen Wiley was shot and killed by police responding to a shoplifting call was fired Tuesday amid a new controversy.
Senatobia Police Chief Harold Vanderford submitted his resignation the same day, but the city's board of aldermen declined to acknowledge it and instead voted unanimously to fire the chief, according to the city clerk, who did not elaborate on their reasons.
The firing followed reporting by The New York Times, Mississippi Today and Verite News last month that alleged Vanderford used racist slurs in private text conversations with a colleague. It also comes amid the aftermath of the child's shooting and other incidents.
Kohen was fatally shot and another woman was wounded June 14 after a Senatobia police officer fired into a vehicle while investigating a shoplifting call at a Walmart. The toddler's mother, Vellesiya Wiley, denied that she or a friend accompanying her had stolen anything, and no charges have been filed against them.
Kohen was Black, as is his mother. The death ignited anger in a small city where tensions between Black residents and the police have boiled over in recent years. Senatobia, with a population of more than 8,000, is about 40 miles (65 kilometers) south of Memphis.
“I believe the Board has a responsibility to protect the integrity and trust of the Senatobia Police Department,” Alderman Demetrius Garrett wrote in a Facebook post. “I still believe in unity. But unity does not mean ignoring serious issues it means standing together for what is right."
The city had previously addressed the reporting about Vanderford's texts, saying in a statement on Aug. 25 that he had appeared before the mayor and board to answer questions and that he would continue to serve as police chief.
Senatobia Alderman Chris McConnell called for an independent investigation of the police department.
“We need answers about departmental leadership, internal culture, the handling of complaints and misconduct, financial practices, and whether the Board has been receiving the information necessary to provide proper oversight,” McConnell said in a statement. “Our citizens deserve a police department they can trust.”
National civil rights attorney Ben Crump, representing Kohen's family, called the chief's firing the “right decision.”
“The racist language that cost Chief Vanderford his job is exactly why this family cannot simply be told to trust the process,” Crump said in a statement calling for the Mississippi Bureau of Investigations to release body-camera footage of the shooting. "Give this family the facts they have been owed since the day Kohen died.”
The Senatobia Police Department declined to comment on the firing.
Vanderford was appointed police chief on Sept. 29, 2025, after the board of aldermen declined to reappoint the previous chief, Richard Chandler, in July of that year.
Chandler led the police department through several controversies. They included the 2023 arrest of a 10-year-old Black boy for urinating in public and an incident in which an officer threatened a woman with a Taser and pulled her from her car during a dispute over a handicapped parking space outside the same Walmart where Kohen was shot.
“You removed Richard Chandler," said Senatobia community activist Patrick Lumumba. “But you did not remove the culture of racism, and that's what Vanderford harbors.”
Following the child's death, Lumumba formed the Senatobia Committee for Accountability and Transparency, a community watchdog group that is demanding answers about the June shooting and advocating for better policing.
He voiced confidence in Lt. Angelica Maze, who will serve as the department's interim police chief, calling her a“good person.”
