- Police chief used racial slurs in private messages, undermining efforts to rebuild community trust
- Department faces scrutiny after fatal shooting of 1-year-old during shoplifting call
- Racist attitudes and comments by other officers also raise concerns about department culture
Senatobia, Mississippi, the city where Kohen Wiley was gunned down by authorities, is once again giving Black folks plenty of reasons to side-eye its police department, and this time, the receipts are coming directly from the chief’s own phone.
According to reporting from The New York Times, Senatobia Police Chief Harold Vanderford repeatedly used slurs in private text conversations, including messages sent after he became the city’s top cop. The 60-year-old, 29-year law enforcement veteran reportedly used the N-word more than a dozen times across 10 conversations dating back to last summer.
And this is not some random Mississippi police department nobody has heard of. This is the same Senatobia department who fatally shot and killed 1-year-old Kohen Wiley in June while responding to a shoplifting call at a Walmart. As BOSSIP previously reported, Kohen was sitting in a vehicle with his mother when officers opened fire. Authorities have said the car drove in the direction of an officer, nearly striking him, while the Wiley family’s attorney, Ben Crump, has presented evidence suggesting the rounds came from the side of the vehicle.
Now, residents are learning that the man running that department was allegedly texting troubling remarks with enough frequency to make it look less like an occasional lapse in judgment and more like a deeply ingrained attitude. Vanderford reportedly described having a “racist moment,” used the slur while discussing a college basketball player, and even texted about shouting the slur while drunk and hoping his neighbors heard him.
In one text message, the chief, Harold Vanderford, described having a “racist moment.” In another, he wrote that he “almost beat a ni**er and white woman’s a** a few minutes ago.”
That is particularly disturbing considering Vanderford arrived promising to rebuild trust with the community. Instead, the department is now facing questions about whether the man responsible for setting its tone harbored the exact kind of racial animus that residents feared. And Vanderford was not the only officer raising eyebrows. Internal complaints also accuse Sgt. Hunter Foster, whom state officials accidentally identified as the subject of the investigation into Kohen’s shooting, of making racially offensive comments toward colleagues shortly before the toddler was killed. Foster remains on patrol, while his attorney insists he will ultimately be cleared.
Vanderford has not publicly addressed the allegations, and the city’s mayor has not responded to requests for comment. Meanwhile, Kohen Wiley’s family is still waiting for answers about why their baby died.
For an already side-eyed Mississippi city trying to convince Black residents that its police department can be trusted, these revelations are doing nothing but reinforcing the racist history that we associate with the state.
