Key Facts

• Police Chief Harold Vanderford was fired for regularly using racist slurs against Black people in his texts.
• Senatobia is about 40% Black and gained national attention after a white officer killed one-year-old Kohen Wiley during a police response at Walmart.
• Vanderford tried to resign on September 1, but the city instead decided to fire him by unanimous vote.
• A Black woman, Angelica Maze, has been named interim police chief after Vanderford’s firing.
• Senatobia has had other incidents involving police and Black residents, including the arrest of a 10-year-old Black boy for public urination.
• The family of Kohen Wiley has a civil rights lawyer, Ben Crump, who says the officers were not in danger when they fired.
• Investigations revealed that the officer who shot Wiley had used racist remarks days before the shooting.
• The family and local groups are demanding transparency and the release of police footage from the incident to understand what really happened.