Police chief fired in Miss. city where officer fatally shot 1-year-old outside Walmart
Harold Vanderford was accused of using racist slurs in text messages.
The chief of a police department in Mississippi where an officer fatally shot 1-year-old Kohen Wiley outside a Walmart in June was fired from his post on Tuesday after allegedly sending racist text messages.
Senatobia, Mississippi, Police Chief Harold Vanderford was fired Tuesday, according to police.
The Senatobia Board of Aldermen and the police department did not immediately return ABC News’ request for statement regarding the reason for the chief’s firing, whether the board’s vote was unanimous or whether the chief attempted to resign before being fired.
Vanderford has not responded to ABC News' request for comment.
The chief's firing came after The New York Times, Mississippi Today and Verite News reported that he had routinely used degrading language and racist slurs against Black people in a series of text messages dating to last summer.
Attorney Ben Crump, who represents the family of Kohen Wiley, responded to the termination saying the Senatobia Board of Aldermen voted unanimously Tuesday to fire the chief and the board declined to accept a resignation letter Vanderford submitted earlier that day.
"Removing this chief was the right decision, and the Senatobia Board of Aldermen deserves credit for acting,” Crump said in a statement obtained by ABC News on Wednesday. “But it does not answer the question Kohen's family has been asking since June 14: what happened to their baby?”
Mayor Greg Graves and the Board of Aldermen met with Vanderford last week "in regard to a recently published story surrounding private text messages that allegedly originated from his mobile device," the city said in a statement released on Aug. 26.
That statement went on to say: "The Chief voluntarily and willingly appeared before the Mayor and Board of Aldermen and answered every question that was asked of him. The Chief’s responses were sincere, and he will continue to serve the City with the confidence that was placed in him at the time that he was appointed as Chief."
The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, which is leading the investigation into the shooting death of Wiey, has not released any surveillance or body camera video of the incident.
Wiley’s family attorneys called for the MBI to release video of the incident in their statement on Wednesday.
The shooting occurred on June 14, after law enforcement officers responded to a shoplifting call in Senatobia, according to the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation. Officers who responded to a shoplifting call encountered two adults allegedly fleeing from the store with a child and going into a vehicle, according to bureau.
Attorneys for the Wiley family said that the adults were accused of stealing diapers.
Officers attempted to stop the vehicle, with one opening fire when the driver allegedly drove toward them, the bureau said. The child was killed and an adult critically injured, officials said.
One-year-old Wiley, his mother and a family friend were in the vehicle at the time, according to the family’s attorneys. Kohen was killed and the family friend was critically injured, the lawyers said.
ABC News’ Sabina Ghebremedhin, Synai Ferrell and Meredith Deliso contributed to this report.
Popular Reads
ABC News Live