Federal investigators probe possible arson at the Mississippi police HQ whose officer shot dead a one-year-old boy

Federal arson investigators from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives have been called in after fire broke out at the Senatobia Police Department in Mississippi at 4:58 a.m. on Saturday, with authorities yet to confirm whether it was deliberately set. The department, serving a town of around 8,000 people roughly 40 miles south of Memphis, has been engulfed in controversy since June when Sergeant Hunter Foster shot and killed Kohen Wiley, a one-year-old Black boy, while responding to a shoplifting call at a Walmart.

Foster resigned earlier this month after Mississippi's Attorney General cleared him of criminal wrongdoing, ruling his use of force was justified.

Police Chief Harold 'Hal' Vanderford, 60, was fired unanimously by the Board of Aldermen in September after journalists exposed racist slurs in his private text messages.

The department said Saturday night: 'We want to assure the public that this incident is being taken extremely seriously.'