Mississippi city where police killed one-year-old Kohen Wiley fires police chief

The police chief of a Mississippi city where one-year-old Kohen Wiley was shot and killed by police responding to a shoplifting call in June was fired Tuesday.

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 Vanderford, according to the city clerk.

His firing comes after reporting by The New York Times, Mississippi Today and Verite News alleged Vanderford used racist slurs in private text conversations with a colleague.

Kohen was fatally shot and another woman was wounded after a Senatobia police officer shot into a vehicle while investigating a shoplifting call at a Walmart. Kohen's mother, Vellesiya Wiley, denied that she or the friend she was with stole anything, and no charges have been filed against them.

Kohen was Black, as is his mother. His death ignited anger in a small town where tensions between Black residents and the police have boiled over in recent years.

“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, writing 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.

National civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who has been 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 wrote in a statement calling for the Mississippi Bureau of Investigations to release body camera footage of the June 14 shooting. "Give this family the facts they have been owed since the day Kohen died.”

The Associated Press contacted the Senatobia Police Department seeking comment.